Forum Discussion
Full Dark Mode in Excel
Currently you can set Office Theme to Black which acts as a dark mode. In Word, setting this to Black makes the page dark and the text white when it is set to “Automatic”.
I was wondering if anyone had an idea if Microsoft is planning to release this same thing for Excel too?
Right now Excel when using the dark theme makes everything dark except the cells. Which kind of makes no sense to me. This is where your eyes are most of the time. It needs to be a proper fully dark theme.
Is there a way to get a full dark mode without manually setting the background color of the cells dark and the text white? Can a plugin be made to do that while keeping the actual cell background “empty” and the text “Automatic”? Is there already a plugin that does that?
Thanks!
58 Replies
I haven't read the many posts on this subject but here is my workaround.
I wanted a solution that allowed me to print the spreadsheet with the normal black font and white backround but only display a grey background on the screen because I get aura migraines from bright white screens.
I could not get dark mode to work for Excel Spreadsheet cells in Office 2021 Home and Student on Windows 11. (I think it is still in beta testing). Here is my workaround.
First, create a background color of your choice using MS Word. Here's how.
In Word, go to Design, Page Color, in the first column I chose this grey color called: "White, Background 1, Darker 35%".
Save the word document.
Open Snip n Sketch (or any other screen capture program). Capture the whole grey looking Word page.
Save it as a .jpg.
Open Excel in a new file.
Then choose Page Layout, Background, From File, browse and select the .jpg you created previously.
I recommend using a black foreground font color if you need to print the spreadsheet.
Here's the good part. The grey background will NOT print. It comes out white at print time.
For any other spreadsheets, simply repeat the part where you load in the .jpg into Excel using Page Layout, Background. You can use any color or darkness you want for the background by first creating it in Word.Alternatively you may fill all sheet cells with grey and print using black & white option
Thanks Sergei. Your solution is easy to setup. One thing I prefer with the other method is that a cell will turn white when you start typing into it or if you double click the cell. When you click away from the cell it turns grey again. I also found the border color: white option to be easy on the eyes. I created some excel templates with varying degrees of grey-ness to make it easy to create new excel files that are already "dimmed".
I'm using Excel Insider beta and it now has an icon to turn the entire spreadsheet black with white gridlines. It's a massive improvment.
would be nice to see this, my office 2019 has the switch modes button for dark mode but it doesn't do anything and my theme is set to Black.
I guess full dark mode is for Excel 365 only
JulienTheriault I found a solution! Using Libre Calc solves this issue. Sorry MS has failed you.
- Select the top left corner of the spreedsheet (all cells)
- Home section:
- select fill color black
- select text color white
- Enjoy
What about the gridlines then..??
Like
- This is a one-click solution https://github.com/stu0292/ExcelDarkMode
After copying the code from the link, I can't use the RestoreLightStyle function to return to the original style. How do I go back to the original formatting?
This was super helpful. I love the simplicity of being able to toggle on and off. I'm not a fan of a full black spreadsheet though and wondered how to replace the black in 'dark' mode with #BFBFBF or R=191,G=191,B=191. I messed around with it a bit but couldn't figure out what I was doing. I suspect it may have to do with the 'Colors' setting under 'Page Layout'.
vanbang9710 Thank you so much for this link. I've followed the instructions and the macro is a game changer for me. Amazing!
I'd like to knwo how to get the DARK THEME turned off
Some how it appeared when I launched excel other day and now I cant get back to the regular WHITE background even when I change theme or theme colors
I NEVER requested a change at all, why am I being force to see the dark background that is VERY annoying and hard to read for me- Apparently some CRAZY programmer thought it would be cool to AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE a setting for you to show off a new theme
But the popup is slightly delayed and I started typing as soon as excel opened and accepted the new theme with out even knowing I did
Ridiculous that ANY SETTING should automatically be changed -- give me a popup telling me about the NEW setting BUT
** DO ** NOT ** AUTO ** CHANGE ** ANY ** SETTING **- Perhaps it is the Office theme setting, which can be found in File, Options, at the bottom of the General tab?
Microsoft you're such a disappointment. In 2023 you cant enable dark mode with the click of a button? People have to be jumping through hoops to get this stuff done? C'mon get your act together and give people what they want. Even Google Sheets is better at this.
JulienTheriault The easiest workaround I can think of, is to open Excel files in the web browser, while using a dark mode extension.
I'm using Chrome with a dark mode extension called "Dark Reader". I use Office365 or Google Sheets to view Excel sheets in the browser, & I automatically have them viewed in dark mode.
I'm also using this method to view PDFs in dark mode, as I couldn't find an app that views PDFs in dark mode natively.
Works great for me when I tried yesterday 6/18/25
- The easiest workaround is to use Microsoft Paint to create a full-on Black photo.
Then Insert that photo from:-
Page Layout -> Background -> select that black image.
Now change the text color from Black to white.
Happy to help!abhishekolympics I have previously used the same method of inserting a black background and changing the text to white, and it works very well. I think there is also a setting where the grid line colour can be changed as well. The problem is that, in a work environment, most people continue to use the normal spreadsheet view. Having a button, as in MS Word, to change to a black background with light coloured text, would be ideal.
The easiest way to do this is to use templates.
Firstly, you have to declare where you want personal templates to be saved.. Using file explorer, create a folder under Documents called Personal Templates, go into that folder and click the location bar so that you can copy that full path.. you'll need it in the next bit..
Now back in Excel go to File > Options > Save and paste the path value in the 'Default Personal Templates Location', and press ok.. this is where any templates you create will be stored.
Create a brand new spreadsheet so everything is completely empty and only a single sheet1.
Press CTRL-A to select all of the sheet and set the background colour, font colour, and border colour
To set the background colour, press the arrow next to the Fill Colour option and choose More Colours > Custom Tab, and set the background to #101010 which is RGB(16,16,16), and press Ok.
Ensuring all of the sheet is still selected, set the font colour to white in the usual way.
Finally set the border colour. For the border, press the arrow and choose More Borders (at the bottom of the border list). Set the Color to the bottom left of the grey cells "White, Background 1, Darker 50%", then press the Outline and Inside buttons to select all cell borders and press ok.
So now we have a dark background sheet with visible cell lines and white font.
Ensure you clear an test text before the next step..
To save it choose File - Save As and use Browse to select the folder you set in the first part for personal templates. Change the Save as Type dropdown to 'Excel Template (XLTX)', and give the file a meaningful name such as Blank Dark.xltx and press ok. Now when you do a file New, you can choose that template to start by looking in the personal tab.. once you've used it once, it will appear in the top of the screen to make it easier to select.
If you need to create multiple sheets, then simply highlight sheet1 and Copy, insert a new sheet and then Paste, the new sheet will then be dark too. If you regularly use multiple sheets, you can always add a 2nd sheet and save it as another template "Blank Dark 2Sheet.xltx" for example.
Hope this helps someone.. As a developer, I do everything I can to avoid looking at white screens all day.
--
Adrian Parker
- Thank you, I know. That's why I want this option on Excel too! It is not there currently on Excel.
- You can vote for the suggestions other people have already posted in this area here:
https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/search/c23f3b77-f01b-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472?q=dark
Voting these up increases the chance Excel is updated to get a true dark mode!
