Ugly Office 2003 icons

[mareke]

I have installed Office 2003 numerous times now on
different computers and have been annoyed by the
unattractive appearance of the icons at the top. They are
fuzzy and heavy looking and lack the elegant refined look
of earlier offices. However about half my installations
have appeared with the icons just as elegant and refined
as older office versions. I thought it might be due to not
enabling clear type on my LCD monitor but that's not it.
It seems to be a matter of luck wether you get the sharp,
clear icons or the heavy fuzzy ones. Would anybody know
how to change the icons such as the 'align left' icon etc
so they are thin and sharp and attractive looking. You
don't have to have an earlier version of office to achieve
this because I have installed it on a formatted hard disk
and gotten the elegant look and just now installed it on a
clean drive and have the ugly look.

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

Do you have WindowsXP themes turned on or off? Do you have high (120) dpi
fonts turned on or off?

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[mareke]

I have Windows XP themes turned off because I use my own
configuration which looks more like the old Windows 98 and
which took me a lot of experimenting to get. I also use
150 DPI because I have to have 1280 by 1024 for the LCD
monitor and like fonts and icons fairly large so I use the
high DPI to enlarge everything. There may be something
about my particular configuration I guess that causes the
problem but it is not unlike the laptop on which I loaded
Office 2003 for a friend and the ugly toolbars were not
there. I'm thinking of uninstalling Office 2003 and then
installing Office 2000 and reinstalling Office 2003 over
it to see if it retains the elegant Office 2000 look by
keeping my Office 2000 settings but of course you should
not have to do this.

 

[Dennis]

Eric,

Where in "Office" can one make the "WindowsXP themes" choice?

Is it done in i.e. Word and is then applicable to all other Modules?

Dennis

 

[mareke]

He meant that the theme you choose for Windows XP affects
the way Office looks and it does. Windows XP has a bluish
colour for example that shows up as one of the background
colours in Office. My particular individual theme affects
the colour of the bar at the top and the colour behind the
icons which are so unattractive. Why an installation
sometimes produces the elegant attractive icons I am used
to while other times I get the heavy fuzzy unattractive
icons is a mystery and clearly not intended by Microsoft.
I have had the attractive icons on the same machine and
pretty much the same theme as I now have except that I may
have achieved the attractive icons intended by Microsoft
by installing Office XP over Office 2003. It seems a bit
ridiculous if that's what you have to do to get them.

 

[Test Man]

No it doesn't.

I have Windows XP themes turned off because I use my own
configuration which looks more like the old Windows 98 and
which took me a lot of experimenting to get. I also use
150 DPI because I have to have 1280 by 1024 for the LCD
monitor and like fonts and icons fairly large so I use the
high DPI to enlarge everything. There may be something
about my particular configuration I guess that causes the
problem but it is not unlike the laptop on which I loaded
Office 2003 for a friend and the ugly toolbars were not
there. I'm thinking of uninstalling Office 2003 and then
installing Office 2000 and reinstalling Office 2003 over
it to see if it retains the elegant Office 2000 look by
keeping my Office 2000 settings but of course you should
not have to do this.