Bug in ColorIndex in Word 2007?

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RobertSeattle - 06 Feb 2007 23:41 GMT

Pretty simple repro:
1. Create some text - change the font color to white via the Word font
2007 UI
2. Select the Text
3. Goto VBA and in the Immediate Windows type ?
Selection.Range.Font.ColorIndex
I'm getting the value of 7 which is the colorindex value wdYellow
instead of 8 - wdWhite.
4. If I do the very same repro steps in Word 2003 I get 8 - the
expected value.

It seems like the Font.ColorIndex property "likes" the value 7 for
almost any font color that isn't part of the WdColorIndex set. That
would be fine if 7 was "undefined" but 7 is wdYellow.

I realize Word 2007 is much more "RGB" dependent but the ColorIndex
still shouldn't be wrong.

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Tony Jollans - 07 Feb 2007 00:23 GMT

WdColorIndex can not represent all the possible Font colours and it's only
use is when a document is opened in Word 97 (maybe 2000 as well, I forget
and am too idle to check at the moment). It should, I believe, be set to the
nearest valid colour to the actual colour chosen - are you quite sure you
set the colour to white and not something close?

Signature

Enjoy,
Tony

> Pretty simple repro:
> 1. Create some text - change the font color to white via the Word font
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> I realize Word 2007 is much more "RGB" dependent but the ColorIndex
> still shouldn't be wrong.

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Jay Freedman - 07 Feb 2007 02:23 GMT

What I observed was that when I apply the "white" block in the font
color dropdown (leftmost in the row just below "Theme Colors"), the
VBA statement returns 7. But if I use the More Colors dialog and set a
custom color of RGB = (255,255,255), then the VBA statement does
return 8.

There's at least one other oddity in that dropdown. The block in the
"Standard Colors" row that claims to be blue is actually a greenish
blue, which the VBA statement says is wdTeal (10) instead of wdBlue
(2).

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

>WdColorIndex can not represent all the possible Font colours and it's only
>use is when a document is opened in Word 97 (maybe 2000 as well, I forget
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>> I realize Word 2007 is much more "RGB" dependent but the ColorIndex
>> still shouldn't be wrong.

Reply to this Message

Tony Jollans - 07 Feb 2007 14:09 GMT

It would be good to get a reply from somebody who knows what they're talking
about. Till then we seem to be stuck with me.

The 24-bit RGB colours of yore occupied the low order 24 bits of a 32-bit
word leaving the high order 8 bits set to zero. Word 2007 has an enhanced
colour model which uses all 32 bits - exactly how it works I don't know but
I think it uses the HSL scheme - and which doesn't map directly to the old
24-bit colours. There ought to be some sort of conversion algorithm which
could be used but it doesn't appear as though one actually is.

The Theme colour used in this case, which looks like white, is actually - I
think - some kind of luminous and/or transparent yellow - in binary it is
11011100 00000000 11111111 11111111. Taken as an RGB value, the high order 8
bits are ignored leaving 00000000 11111111 11111111 which is 'pure' yellow
(wdColorYellow), When converted to a ColorIndex this comes out as wdYellow.

Although one can still set colours to RGB values it would appear that
checking them is no longer viable. I can see this causing some confusion :-)

Signature

Enjoy,
Tony

> What I observed was that when I apply the "white" block in the font
> color dropdown (leftmost in the row just below "Theme Colors"), the
[quoted text clipped - 38 lines]
>>> I realize Word 2007 is much more "RGB" dependent but the ColorIndex
>>> still shouldn't be wrong.

Reply to this Message