Working early in the morning with a bright computer screen can often feel like a shock to the system and is nothing short of torture, to our eyes. Even if the brightness level is turned down, some laptops just feel a little too bright for certain times of the day. This is where dark mode comes to the rescue.
Besides giving a very required break to your eyes, enabling Windows dark mode on a system also helps to preserve the life of your battery.
Turning On the Dark Mode on Windows 10
In the October 2018 update of Windows 10, Microsoft expanded the dark theme to cover all parts of File Explorer. This expansion essentially means that things will get much more vibrant when you enable dark mode.
Follow these steps to enable it in the most recent version of Windows 10.
Step 1: First we have to go to Settings. You can click the gear icon in the start menu or just type “settings” in the search bar.
Step 2: Then head to Personalization, you can identify this with the icon of a paintbrush over a computer monitor.
Step 3: Now when the window opens, click Colors in the left-hand sidebar.
Step 4: Then under the heading Choose Your Color, click on the drop-down menu. Here there will be three theme options: Light, Dark, and Custom. For dark mode, select Dark. The Light option, contrastingly, will turn your menus and windows to a bright shade of white. By Selecting the Custom option two more options will be triggered to appear: Choose Your Default Windows Mode and Choose Your Default App Mode. For the given options, now you will be prompted to choose either Light or Dark, for each option. And in this manner, with the Custom option, choosing Light or Dark doesn’t have to mean that it will be applied to the whole system at once. Rather, it can mean just choosing dark mode for certain situations.
Step 5: This is an optional step, but the Colors section of the Settings menu also allows you to customize your dark mode (or other modes) further with accent color options. When enabled, accent colors show up in things like menu icons, the Start menu, or the taskbar. You will find that the accent color options are located under the heading Choose Your Accent Color. If what you want is for Windows to automatically choose an accent color to match your wallpaper, tick the box next to the phrase Automatically Pick an Accent Color From My Background.
By navigating to the heading Windows Colors you can select from a preset collection of 48 accent colors that come with the Windows OS. You can also opt for a custom color by clicking on the Plus Sign icon next to the phrase Custom Color. Finally, you can also manage where these colors show up by ticking the box next to either or both of these phrases: Start, Taskbar, and Action Center or Title Bars and Window Borders. Both the options are available for Dark and Custom modes, but not for Light mode. Light mode will only offer Title Bars and Window Borders options. These last two options mentioned should be located in the Colors menu under the heading Show Accent Color on the Following Surfaces.
Additional Tip: Activating dark mode in Microsoft Office to match system settings
If the Windows dark mode has already been set, you might also want to do the same with your Microsoft Office apps. The dark mode is allowed on the latest version of MS office has added the option to apply the visuals you’ve set up for your current setting background to the Office app. Here’s how:
Step 1: Set your Windows 10 on the dark mode by using the steps that have been mentioned above.
Step 2: Open an Office app. MS Word for instance. After this, choose Account from the lower-left corner of your screen.
Step 3: Under the Office Theme heading, click to view all of the drop-down menu options.
screenshot
Step 4: Click on Use System Setting from the drop-down menu. If you already had your system setting on dark mode, your Microsoft Office apps will immediately darken and turn black.
But, it has to be mentioned that if you wish to use dark mode across all of your Microsoft Office apps, it can be a bit tricky as the Use System Setting might not work for every app. You won’t find this option in certain Office app menus, and if you don’t have a paid subscription to Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365, there will be even more limitations. You have full access to the software, or you might not be able to use dark mode or the Black option for every app.
You May Also Like
