Can't change text color in Microsoft Word 2010

Posted by Wesley on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Wesley
Published on 2012-01-05T03:28:53Z Indexed on 2014/05/28 21:37 UTC
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I have Microsoft Office 2010 32-bit running on Windows 7 32-bit. When text is highlighted and a color is selected from the mini-toolbar or the ribbon, the text does not change color. If I change the color for multiple words, and select a different color for each word, the toolbar and ribbon will reflect each of the different colors that I chose, however it is not displayed in the document. So it appears that Word is aware of the text color and not as if it is simply not applying the change.

What may be causing this inability to view text colors and how might I fix it?

My only troubleshooting attempt so far has been to perform a repair installation of Office.

EDIT 1

I created a document, typed a word, selected it and changed the color. I then saved the document as HTML. The text did not change color. This is the HTML in the document:

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<p class=MsoNormal><span class=GramE><span style='color:red'>blah</span></span><span
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</div>

</body>

</html>

EDIT 2

I recorded a macro and did the following:

Typed a word
Selected the word
Changed the color.

Oddly, I had some strange issues while the macro was recorded. I could not select text with my cursor. I had to select the text with control a and then apply the color change. I then couldn't deselect the selected text.

Nonetheless, the text showed that it had a different color in the toolbar, but the color did not display in the document. Here's the macro:

Sub Change_Text_Color()
'
' Change_Text_Color Macro
'
'
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Test Text"
    Selection.WholeStory
    Selection.WholeStory
End Sub

EDIT 3

I opened WordPad and created some text and was able to successfully change the color. If I copy and paste the colored text into a Word 2010 document, the color is lost. However, if you place the I-beam in the text and then look at the color selection drop-down menu on the ribbon or mini-toolbar, you can see that the proper color that the text should be in is highlighted.

Edit 4

I uninstalled the entire Office 2010 Suite, rebooted and then reinstalled the suite. No change in behavior.

Edit 5

Text cannot be colored in Excel either.

Developer IT