Bug 170143 - Some UI text color is influenced by the Windows appearance settings
Summary: Some UI text color is influenced by the Windows appearance settings
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: LibreOffice (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
25.8.0.4 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: UI-Theming LibreOffice-Themes
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Reported: 2025-12-27 15:02 UTC by Mihai Vasiliu
Modified: 2025-12-28 12:36 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:

Attachments
Styles panel (16.75 KB, image/png)
2025-12-27 15:06 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu 		Details
Status bar text (7.65 KB, image/png)
2025-12-27 15:06 UTC, Mihai Vasiliu 		Details
View All Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

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Description Mihai Vasiliu 2025-12-27 15:02:52 UTC 
Description:
The text color in the Status bar, themes panel and other places is influenced by the Windows Light/Dark appearance settings, rather than by the LibreOffice theme used, resulting in unreadable text.

Steps to Reproduce:
0. Set Windows Appearance mode to Light
1. Enable application theming from LO Appearance settings and choose a dark theme, for example Office 2003 Dark Blue Theme
2. Restart LibreOffice
3. Create a new Writer or Calc document.

Actual Results:
Observe the color of the text in the status bar: Dark text on dark background.
Observe the color in the styles panel (in Writer): Dark text on dark background.

Expected Results:
The color should respect the theme, and have a high contrast, in this case, white  or whatever the theme creator chooses.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 25.8.4.2 (X86_64)
Build ID: 290daaa01b999472f0c7a3890eb6a550fd74c6df
CPU threads: 20; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (build 26200); UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded
Comment 1 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-12-27 15:06:02 UTC 
Created attachment 204820 [details]
Styles panel
Comment 2 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-12-27 15:06:13 UTC 
Created attachment 204821 [details]
Status bar text
Comment 3 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-12-27 15:06:43 UTC 
This was reported in comments on themes: https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/99416#comment-5146
Comment 4 Mihai Vasiliu 2025-12-27 15:50:56 UTC 
Reproducible also in 

Version: 26.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64)
Build ID: 792fca692594a642762c8ea62581d43fb56300d4
CPU threads: 20; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (build 26200); UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win
Locale: ro-RO (ro_RO); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded

Let's discuss this and find a proper solution, we should not have another release with this bug...
Comment 5 V Stuart Foote 2025-12-28 12:36:21 UTC 
Confirmed with STR.

Win11 DWM in Light color sense, LO Tools -> Options -> Appearance 'Enable application theming' checked and the "Office 2003 Dark blue" appearance theme selected active.

FG text on the 'Status' bar, and FG text of the Sidebar's 'Styles' deck do not follow the style and receive a low contrast dark on dark (black on grey) coloring.

Selecting a different Dark appearance theme "Dark Gray" results in an even lower contrast dark on dark for the FG text in those elements.

=-testing-=

20251226 TB103 nightly
Version: 26.8.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64)
Build ID: 680(Build:0)
CPU threads: 28; OS: Windows 11 X86_64 (build 26200); UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL threaded