Dark Mode Coming to Microsoft Office for Mac

With the release of macOS Mojave in September, Apple introduced a Dark Mode to its desktop operating system that some users prefer the look of, or just find more forgiving on the eyes. Many third-party apps have followed suit with their own darkened interfaces, and now it looks like a similar interface option is also headed for Microsoft Office.

MS PowerPoint in Dark Mode
Microsoft Office product manager Akshay Bakshi has been teasing as much on social media, with two tweets posted on October 29 and 30 indicating that users of Office for Mac will soon have the ability run at least some apps included in the productivity suite in a new native Dark Mode.

Look closely at the Pictures icon. Office running on macOS Mojave in Dark Mode. #OfficeInsiders #office365 pic.twitter.com/xDSTFvNr5q
— Akshay Bakshi 🎉 (@AgentAkki) October 29, 2018

According to the tweets, Dark Mode will be available in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, featuring new dynamic ribbon and icon styling. Users signed up to the Insiders Fast community getting access to the visual refresh first in build 181029.

📣 Office Visual Refresh and Dark Mode support rolling out now to Insiders Fast with build 181029!

🎀 New Ribbon and icon styling in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
🌙 Dark Mode in Word, Excel and PPT on macOS Mojave. https://t.co/gTrEQbJoiN #OfficeInsiders #office365 pic.twitter.com/rTvFvOsqE1
— Akshay Bakshi 🎉 (@AgentAkki) October 30, 2018

Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office

Top Rated Comments

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DanielDD

11 months ago

Great. Now we all can appreciate a good looking interface while we wait for the apps to respond.

Rating: 12 Votes

Mascots

11 months ago

Ugh no Outlook? The one I'm forced to stare at, jack around with, and spend eons searching through all damn day?

Rating: 8 Votes

ppdix

11 months ago

What about a dark mode for Mac Rumors?
DPReview.com has one and it looks great

Rating: 2 Votes

schmidt65

11 months ago

It’s like everything is switching from this bright-white-transparent look to gray/black.

Tim Cook to Microsoft:

"Oh, you think dark mode is your ally? You merely adopted the dark mode. I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but blinding. Dark mode betrays you, because it belongs to me"

Rating: 1 Votes

macduke

11 months ago

What about a dark mode for Mac Rumors?
DPReview.com has one and it looks great

DPReview has a dark mode? Hah, they were born in the dark. You mean that they didn't even have a light mode until two years ago, lol.

Anyway, I came here to say the same thing about websites in general. A dark mode is all good and fine until websites start supporting it. I do web design and development, and as far as I know, there isn't a media query for it yet. There has been talk about a standard coming, and then browsers have to implement it. This would enable developers to easily see if a user has their system set to dark mode and then provide their own override stylesheet. There are extensions that will do this, but they aren't perfect. It's best for a website designer to make certain that the site dark mode looks good and meshes with their brand identity. Using queries to modify style sheets shouldn't be a ton of additional work for a web designer because it's just a matter of swapping out color variables. The hard work (all the typography and responsive structure) is already done. Though some sites are rather expansive, so it depends how well organized you are and how long it will take to test all the different scenarios to make sure something doesn't clash or lose contrast as there are WCAG accessibility guidelines that we also have to follow (or at least should be following).

Rating: 1 Votes