Adobe Reader Colour Schemes

Why Change the Colours?

Changing the colour scheme of text involves changing text colour (foreground) and/or the page colour (background). This can help many computer users by reducing glare and therefore reducing eye fatigue and headaches. It can also help people who are sensitive to certain colours or can not easily read text in a black on white format such as is found by many people with scotopic sensitivity syndrome or dyslexia.

Before you start you need to have set your own preferred colour scheme for Windows. You can do this using a free program such as Screen Tinter Lite or by delving into the Windows Control Panel. These changes appear automatically in Microsoft Word and in Windows dialogs, but not on the pages shown in Adobe Reader.

Enabling your Colour Scheme

It's really easy to enable your colour scheme in Internet Explorer 6 or the new Internet Explorer 7. You must have already used the Windows Control Panel or Screen Tinter Lite to establish your own custom colours before continuing (I recommend Screen Tinter Lite).

Select Preferences... from the Edit menu.

ALT + E, N

Select 'Accessibility' from the menu on the left hand side of the dialog.

Arrow Keys

Tick the box marked 'Replace Document Colors'.

ALT + R

Now select 'Use Windows Color Scheme'.

ALT + W

Finally press the OK button to confirm you choice and return to your document

Enter

In most cases you should see that the black-and-white document has changed to match the colours you have chosen in screen tinter lite or from the Windows control panel. Some documents, unfortunately, have been authored or scanned in such a way that they do not allow you to change the colours.