PowerPoint displays a presentation in B/W, won't show it in color

Problem

When you open presentations in PowerPoint, they display in shades of gray rather than in color.

Solution

Are you in B/W View?

If some presentatations appear in color and some don't, the ones that don't are probably set to Black and White view.
To put a little color back into your life:

• PowerPoint 97 and 2000: Click Black and White on the View menu
• PowerPoint 2002 and up: Click Color/Grayscale then click Color on the View menu
• Save the presentation

You'll need to do this for each presentation that appears in shades of gray.

Check your Windows Accessibility settings

If all of your presentations appear in shades of gray or b/w and so do your other Windows programs and Windows itself, it's probably the result of a Windows Accessibility setting. Here's what to do:

• Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel
• Double-click "Accessibility Options"
• Click the "Display" tab
• Remove the checkmark next to "Use High Contrast"

That will turn the High Contrast mode off but we recommend one further step. Chances are that you got into High Contrast mode in the first place by accidentally pressing the shortcut key combination that triggers it. To turn off the shortcut:

• Click Settings
• Remove the checkmark next to "Use Shortcut"
• Click OK to dismiss the Settings dialog box
• Click OK to dismiss the Accessibility Options dialog box

Your presentation (and other programs) should now appear in glorious color.

Note: You may have turned on the High Contrast settings accidentally. By default, Windows XP, for example, enables Alt + Left Shift + PrintScreen as a hotkey to toggle High Contrast on and off. It'd be easy to hit the Left Shift as well as the other keys while making a screenshot. If you think this may have happened, press Alt + Left Shift + PrintScreen again to see if it toggles back to normal display settings.

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