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Changing Screen and Text Colours in Windows 7
Mada Assistive Technology Center
Tel: 00 974 44594050
Fax: 00 974 44594051
Email: [email protected]
Changing Screen and Text Colours in Windows 7
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Introduction Many people find working on a white screen too bright and they may get headaches, other people find it much easier to read on with a different background colour. It is easy to adjust the background window colour or the colour scheme of the whole computer to a colour that suits you. You can make your own colour scheme or choose a High Contrast Scheme as well as using free software to make the changes for you. To use the links below hold down the Control key and click on one or press the PageDown key to see the topics Using a High Contrast Scheme
Change the Window Colour
Saving your colours as a theme
Changing colours in Internet Explorer
Free RapidSet software
Free Screen Tinter Lite software
Free T Bar software
Washer
How will the changes you make affect other users of the computer?
Note:
Instructions for mouse users have black bullet points Instructions for keyboard users have arrow shaped bullet points
To get to the Personalise section in the Display properties
Right Click on the desktop and from the menu choose Personalise Now go to page 2, Using a high contrast scheme Or
Press the Windows key Type Control Panel into the search box at the
bottom of the Start menu and press Enter
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In If you do not see a list of icons you are in Category view, to change this:
Press Shift and Tab to highlight View by category Then press Spacebar and then the down cursor key to Large icons and press
Enter
the Control Panel
In icon view in the Control panel Tab to Display and press Enter In Display view Tab to Personalisation and press Enter
If neither of these works contact your computer manager to give you access to these functions.
Using a High Contrast Scheme
High contrast themes include white text on a black screen, yellow text on a black screen etc. This can make the screen readable for some people who otherwise cannot read the screen.
Scroll down on the right of the screen and mouse click on one of the high contrast themes to try it. Or
Tab into the theme My Theme window and use the cursor keys to go to High Contrast themes pressing Enter on the one you want to try out
You can easily change back to another theme if you wish.
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Change the window colour
Some people only want to change the background window colour they are typing in and nothing else, this can be easily done. Often they pick pale yellow, green or blue as they find this more restful on the eyes. Follow instructions on Page 1 to get to the personalise screen On the Personalise Screen
Click on the Window Colour icon and if you see the advanced settings option click on it Or
Tab to the Window Colour icon and press Enter, if you see the advanced settings option Tab to it and press Enter
You should see the Window Colour and Appearance box
Left click on the Item drop down box and select Window Click on colour 1 and choose a background colour. For more colours click on Other, choose a colour then click OK and Apply
Or Tab to the Item drop down box and press the down cursor key to select Window or
press W Tab to colour 1 and press Spacebar Press O for other colour Use the Arrow keys to choose to the colour you want and press the Spacebar. The press Enter Tab to Apply and press Enter or press A to Apply the colour
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If you open MS Word or MS Excel you will see that the Window colour has changed. You can change it back if you are not happy by following the steps above. You can also change the text colour by clicking on the bottom colour box Warning: Do not choose the same colour for text and window.
Saving your screen changes as a theme
Changes you make to the desktop background picture, the size of the system fonts and menus and the colour of the program window can be saved as a theme. If anyone makes changes to the computer screen you can always load your theme to get your settings back. Once you have made changes to the display and clicked Apply you will see the Personalise screen with your unsaved theme.
Click on Save Theme or right click on Unsaved theme Type in a name and click Save
Or Tab to Unsaved theme then use the cursor keys to get to Save theme and press
Enter Type in a name and press Enter
You can then load this theme whenever you need it.
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Changing Colours in Internet Explorer
You can change the colours in Internet Explorer to the Window colours you have chosen above or to a high contrast theme. However this will only work on certain web pages that are designed to let you use your own colours. To do this
Open Internet Explorer Left click on the Cog wheel icon at top right of the
window then click on Internet Options Or
Open Internet Explorer Press Alt + X then O for Internet Options
In Internet Options
Click on Accessibility Or
Tab to Accessibility press Enter
In Accessibility
Tick the box Ignore colors specified on web pages and the other boxes if you want. Click OK Or
Press Alt + C to tick the Ignore colors Press Alt + S for ignore font styles Press Alt + z for ignore font sizes Then press Enter
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In Internet Options Click on the Colors button in Internet Options and
tick Windows colours if you want Internet Explorer to use your windows colour scheme. Click OK Click Apply in the Internet Options box Or
Tab to Colours Press Alt + W to put a tick in the box for Use
windows colours Then press Enter Tab to Apply and press Enter or Press Alt + A in
the Internet Options Box to make the changes
Free Resources
RapidSet
RapidSet allows quick and easy changing of the background and font colours, without having to go through the Screen Properties dialogs. Add link
Screen Tinter Lite
Screen Tinter Lite lets you easily change screen colours it can be downloaded from: http://www.thomson-software-solutions.com/html/screen_tinter.html
T-Bar
T-Bar is a coloured bar which you can either drag around the screen or lock to your mouse. It can have ruled lines or not, depending on your preference. The colour can be chosen from pre-defined options, and then tweaked by altering the red, green or blue sliders to get the perfect colour; the transparency level can be adjusted, again to suit the individual. All the settings are saved between sessions, so there is no need to readjust the next time you use it. Add link
Washer
There are some software applications which attempt to correct for the varying types of colour blindness by adjusting specific colours, however these rely greatly on the user having a standard form of colour deficient vision. Washer simply renders everything underneath its window in a grey scale format, thus catering for a high proportion of colour
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deficiencies. The software itself is very simple to use. When started it will display anything beneath the main window in shades of grey, and can be dragged around the screen to select different areas. Add link
How will the changes you make affect other users of the computer?
Any changes made may affect other people who use the computer, especially if there is no log on screen.
Please tell other people what you have changed so they understand what is happening
If you have your own computer logon, changes will just affect your computer use Please see the Information Sheet on Themes and User Profiles in Windows 7 on
setting up the computer for different users “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
We request attribution to Mada and all other authors of original materials is retained”
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“This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. We request attribution to Mada and all other authors of original materials is retained”
