The new look of Office

Office has an updated look that provides a more simple and coherent experience, letting you easily focus on your work across all Office apps.

Important: If you want to change themes after transitioning to the Visual Refresh, here's how: Go to File > Options > General > Office Theme and select one of the options from the dropdown menu. Learn more

Visual Update for Office for Windows            

The visual refresh of Office provides a fresh, new experience. It shines on Windows 11, while still enhancing the user experience on Windows 10.

Screenshot showing Powerpoint, Excel, and Word with visual refresh in Ribbon

We based the Office visual refresh on feedback from users like you who asked for a more natural and consistent experience within and between your Windows Office apps. With this new look, we've applied Fluent Design principles to deliver an intuitive, familiar experience across all your applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Project, Publisher, and Visio.

How it works

We are excited for users to experience Office at its best. All eligible users will eventually receive the visual refresh.

We've already listened to a lot of user feedback to improve the visual refresh. Your feedback is critical to help us make it even better. If there are specific icons or elements of the new design that aren't working for you, please let us know.

To submit feedback, go to File > Feedback and then choose an option. It's helpful, but optional, if you include a screenshot showing us what you think we should improve.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you had Colorful selected as your Office Theme, we'll switch you to Use system setting when enabling the new look. This means you'll see Office's White theme if your system is set to Light theme, and Office's Black theme if it's set to Dark theme. You can return to Colorful by navigating to File > Account > Office Theme (or File > Options > General > Office Theme). Learn more

You can use one theme in Office and another in Windows, or have Office match the Windows theme. It's your call.

To set your Office Theme:

In an Office app, select File > Account (or File > Options > General).
From the Office Theme dropdown, select the theme you want. If you select Use system setting, your Office theme will match your Windows theme. Note that if you had been in Colorful prior to receiving the new look, or if you'd chosen a theme other than White in Office 2013, the Office Theme dropdown will appear empty until you choose a new theme.

In many Microsoft products, you can collapse or pin the Ribbon:

Select Ribbon Display Options > Always Show Ribbon to keep the ribbon visible.
Select Ribbon Display Options > Show Tabs Only to collapse the ribbon.
You can also click Ctrl+F1 or double click a ribbon tab to quickly change the ribbon state. Learn more