Turn On Dark Mode Across Office Apps

You want Office to use a dark interface to cut down on glare — and to control whether the page you’re editing is dark or stays white.

Why: Office has two separate switches that people confuse. The Office Theme controls the colour of the ribbon, menus, and window — set it to Black for dark mode, and the change applies across all your Office apps at once. The document page (the white sheet you type on) is controlled separately, so you can have a dark interface with a normal white page if you prefer.

Step 1: Set the Office Theme to Black

Changing this in one app changes it everywhere, because the theme is tied to your account.

1. Open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Outlook.
2. Go to File > Account (in Outlook it’s File > Office Account).
3. Under Office Theme, open the dropdown and choose Black.

Your options are White, Colorful, Dark Gray, Black, and Use system setting (which matches Windows’ own light/dark mode). For the darkest look, pick Black. In Outlook, dark mode for emails is on by default once the theme is Black.

Step 2: Make the document page dark too (Word)

Setting the theme to Black darkens the interface but leaves the page white. To darken the page:

1. In Word, go to the View tab.
2. Select Switch Modes.

This toggles the page background between dark and light. Word remembers your choice for future sessions. (In Excel, the equivalent is View > Switch Modes once the theme is Black or set to system.)

Step 3: Keep the page white but the interface dark (optional)

If a dark page is hard to read for editing, you can force the page to stay light while keeping the dark interface.

1. Go to File > Options > General.
2. Under Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office, tick Never change the document page color.
3. Click OK.

FAQ

I set Black but only one app changed. The theme follows your signed-in Microsoft account. Make sure you’re signed in with the same account in each app; the change then carries across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

My printout came out dark. It won’t — the dark page is a screen-only display setting. Documents print on white paper regardless of the page colour you see on screen.

There’s no Switch Modes button. Switch Modes appears when the Office Theme is Black (or Use system setting with Windows in dark mode). Set the theme first, then check the View tab.

Sources: Microsoft Support — Change the look and feel of Microsoft 365 · Microsoft Support — Dark Mode in Word