Upon a clean install of Office 2013 on my Surface Pro tablet, the Folder Pane was hidden for me. Tab View-> button View Settings-> button Conditional Formatting-> select: Unread messages-> button Font….If you don’t like all this blue, you can change it back to black (or 15 other colors) in the following way. You can do the same for messages which are marked as unread to mark them as read. Click on this to mark the message as unread again. When you hover over this line, it becomes wider. When you hover over a message which is marked as read, you’ll see a faint line where the blue bar used to be. If there is a blue bar in front of the message, it is unread, if there isn’t, it is unread. Instead of using envelopes to more visually display the message’s read or unread status, Outlook 2013 now uses a blue bar. I actually don’t use them very often though as I usually use the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+1, CTRL+2, CTRL+3, etc… Blue bar, blue subjects and no more read/unread envelopes I have it configured to show: Mail, Calendar, Contact, Tasks and Notes. I still have the Navigation Strip at the bottom, even on my 768 pixel high netbook. The latter also affects the program’s color (like the File tab and the Status Bar) a lot more. The light gray theme takes out a lot of the pure whiteness while the dark gray theme often is the theme of choice for (graphic) designers.
When you are logged into Office with a Microsoft Account, you can change your theme via:Īs an alternative, or when not logged on with a Microsoft Account, you can also use:Īfter so many years of having a blue interface by default in Windows and/or Office, these alternatives can be somewhat depressing, dull or at least disappointing. However, the alternatives are “light gray” and “dark gray” so things are not getting more colorful. If lack of contrast is your main issue, changing the theme might help already.
You can choose the font, the size and the style you’d like to use in Outlook. Now under New mail messages, Replying or forwarding messages and Composing and reading plain text messages click on the Font button and choose your desired fonts for each.
If you are still using Outlook 2003 or 2007, then your steps are a little different to change the default settings. You can choose whichever font and size you would like to use, and it should not be affected by the theme you’ve chosen.Ĭhanging Font Settings in Outlook 2003 or 2007 Now click the Font button under New mail messages, Replying or forwarding messages and Composing and reading plain text messages.Under Theme or Stationery for new HTML e-mail message make sure you select Use my font when replying and forwarding messages or Always use my fonts under the Font dropdown menu.