Vanishing Colours

Some time back I altered some setting on my desktop PC desktop to improve the legibility and I think this has affected most if not all of my programs. An unforeseen consequence has been that the complete colour palette seems to have been removed, I can have any (background) colour I want as long as it is white. This has affected the colour of the font as well. I have attached a very simple Excel spreadsheet.  The first two columns have a coloured background, the second two a coloured font. Except that you would not know it.

Any idea what the cause is and what I can do about it?

Thanks

No screenshot.

This the screenshot of the Excel spreadsheet showing life without colours. The first four columns should have coloured backgrounds and fonts respectively. Interestingly part of the ribbon does have colours.

 

When I submitted the screenshot an error message came up saying that I was not able to use that extension on the community.

Upload to https://www.imgbb.com

1. Open Control Panel: Type “Control Panel” in the search bar and hit Enter.
2. Select Color Management: Search for “Color Management” and click on it.
3. Reset Preferences:
   • In the Color Management window, check “Use my settings for this device.”
   • Select your monitor from the dropdown list.
   • Click on “Profiles,” then remove any profiles listed that seem incorrect or unnecessary.
   • Restart your computer after making these changes.

Thanks for thestep by step guidance. The problem is that if I do a general reset that will override the original objective which was to increase contrast, increase legibility and reduce eyestrain. There is probably a set of settings which do this but which I have not latched onto.

Can you upload a couple screen shots of the issue? To a file hosting site and provide links.

 

https://imgbb.com/

Yes I owe Cryptodan a response to the same suggestion. A shot of the desktop (coloured) and one of the B/W Excel spreadsheet

I saved the 2 screenshots as Word documents - but imgbb.com won't import this format. How do I save the screenshots in a format that imgbb.com will accept?

Jpg or png

These are unfortunately not in the options that I can save a Word doc into. I'm missing a trick somewhere

Don't use Word.

Instead, do one of these:

1) For a full-screen screenshot, hold the [Windows] Logo key and strike PrintScrn. This will save a screenshot in the appropriate format in the Screenshots folder in Pictures.

2) For a shot of a single window, hold the Logo and Alt keys and strike PrintScrn. This will save a shot of the current window in the Captures folder in Videos (yes, Videos).

Oh… Wait… This is Windows 7, not Windows 10.

For Windows 7, do one of these:

1) For a full-screen screenshot, hold Shift and strike PrintScrn. Then run Paint (or your preferred art program) and paste. Then save a file in JPG or PNG format and post it here.

2) For a shot of just an Excel window, make sure Excel is in front and hold Alt and strike PrintScrn. The rest is the same.

I have attached png screenshots of my W7 desktop (with colo(u)rs),  and my Excel file without. The latter should be partly coloured also.

I suspect that the original "mistake" was made when I tried to improve the legibility / contrast by changing one of the Windows settings which had this knock-on effect. Supposing I was able to reverse this it would just take me back to the original state of poor legibility.

Is Aero working?