How to Enable Dark Mode in Microsoft Word

Reducing Eye Strain While Writing

If you spend hours every day staring at Microsoft Word documents, the glaring white background of a blank page can quickly cause significant eye fatigue. This is especially true if you are working late at night in a dimly lit room, where the stark contrast between your screen and the surrounding environment is most severe.

To combat this, Microsoft introduced a comprehensive Dark Mode for Word. Unlike older versions of the software that merely turned the menus grey while leaving the page blindingly white, the modern Dark Mode can invert the entire application. It turns the toolbar, the surrounding canvas, and the document page itself into a soothing dark grey or black, while automatically adjusting text colours (turning black text to white) so everything remains perfectly readable.

Enabling Dark Mode is simple, but Microsoft also provides a clever toggle switch that allows you to keep the dark menus while forcing the physical page to remain white, giving you total control over your writing environment.

How to Enable Dark Mode in Microsoft Word (Windows)

If you are using Microsoft Word on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC, you can change the theme directly from the application settings.

1. Open Microsoft Word. (You can do this from the startup screen or from inside an existing document).
2. Click on File in the extreme top left corner of the ribbon menu.
3. Look at the very bottom of the left-hand blue sidebar and click on Account. (If you do not see Account, click on Options and select General).
4. Look for the section labelled Office Theme.
5. Click the drop-down menu and select Black.

The entire interface will instantly transform. It is important to note that changing the “Office Theme” here will also apply this dark mode to other Microsoft Office applications installed on your computer, such as Excel and PowerPoint.

Note: If you select “Use system setting” from the drop-down menu, Word will automatically switch between light and dark mode whenever you change your main Windows operating system theme.

How to Enable Dark Mode in Microsoft Word (Mac)

If you are using Word on macOS, the application is designed to automatically respect your system-wide preferences, but you can also override them if necessary.

1. Open Microsoft Word on your Mac.
2. Click on Word in the menu bar at the extreme top left of the screen (next to the Apple logo).
3. Select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
4. Click on the General icon.
5. Look under the “Personalize” section. You will see options for Dark Mode.

Here, you have a few choices. By default, Word might be set to change based on your Mac’s system settings. However, you can force it into Dark Mode permanently by selecting the appropriate radio button.

How to Keep the Page White in Dark Mode

Many writers love the dark menus because they reduce glare, but they absolutely hate typing on a black page because it makes visualising the final printed document difficult. Microsoft anticipated this and included a feature specifically to separate the page colour from the menu colour.

On Windows:

1. Ensure Word is already in Dark Mode (the Black theme).
2. Open a document and click on the View tab in the top ribbon menu.
3. Look for a button labelled Switch Modes (it has an icon of a sun and a moon).
4. Clicking this button will instantly toggle the physical page background between black and white, while leaving all the surrounding menus perfectly dark.

On Mac:

1. Go to Word > Preferences > General.
2. Under the Dark Mode settings, look for a specific checkbox labelled Dark Mode has a dark page color.
3. Uncheck this box. The menus will remain dark, but the document canvas will instantly revert to bright white.

Does Dark Mode Affect Printing?

A common concern is whether typing white text onto a black background means the document will print that way, draining expensive black ink.

You do not need to worry. Dark Mode is purely a visual filter for your screen. When you save the document, email it to a colleague, or send it to a printer, Microsoft Word processes it normally. The document will print as standard black text on white paper, exactly as it should, regardless of how it looked on your monitor.