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Office 2010 - default font colour

I upload files of text to Amazon Kindle (I write them in Word, convert them to HTML and then upload).  I must write main body text only using default settings – ie with no ‘forced’ settings as to e.g. alignment, font colour, font size etc.  My problem seems to be with font colour. It must be set to ‘Automatic’ (so that if a reader chooses a dark background the font colour will adjust automatically) but the Kindle people tell me that, by the time my files arrive with them, the “Automatic colour option is pointing to red color; please let’s make sure,” they say, “the Automatic option points out to a black color”.

 

Using the font dialogue box I have checked that the font is set (by default) to Automatic, and the colour in the box is black, so can anyone please tell me what more I should be doing?

 

Thank you.

Hello Chris,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Office Community.

First, let's determine whether the issue is with Word 2010.

Provide more details to help you better.

1) In which color does the font appear when you convert the Word file to *.html format?

2) When do you upload the document? Is it before or after converting it?

3) Does this issue occur if you upload the document to OneDrive?

Please reply with necessary information and I'll be happy to help you further.

Thank you.

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Hi Daniel

First of all, thank you for looking into this for me - much appreciated. The answers to your questions:

1)  The font always appears in black, solid black, not the grey that appears on Kindle. The Kindle people told me to 'backload' (that's my term, by which I mean download back) my html file from the Kindle website, save it as a word.doc, change the font to what it should be, then upload it again. When I did that the font was in black and the settings were black, automatic, just as they should be.

Incidentally, I had a second but similar problem although this was not a problem to them. It is that the first line of each chapter or section should not be indented, as all other paragraphs are. In my Word doc and in html the formatting is correct, and the same when I backload it, but on the kindle reader every paragraph is indented, including the ones I set to be not indented.  I don't know whether that tells us anything about how it all goes wrong when I upload it to the Kindle publishing platform.

2)  The procedure is to convert the document to html before uploading to the Kindle publishing platform, as they don't want it in Word. The other 'rules' for how to format your Word.doc are contained in their guidelines for publishing, which they set out in kdp.amazon.com. I follow them rigorously (as far as I know) and everything works - apart from this colour issue and the indentation issue.

3)  No, the issue doesn't occur when I upload a doc to OneDrive.

Many thanks for your help, Daniel.

Chris

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Wrt the indents, I ran across the solution to this in the (free) Smashwords Style Guide:

The Amazon Kindle and its associated apps (Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac) automatically insert a preceding first-line indent if one isn’t defined, even on block paragraphs. This can create an ugly, unprofessional-looking ebook. To overcome this problem, I configured my Normal to define a “special” first-line indent of 1/100th of an inch (.01″) to trick Kindle apps and devices to not automatically indent my paragraphs. The indent will be imperceptible to most eyes, and it should prevent Kindle and its apps from inserting the first-line indent where you don’t want it.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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Hi Suzanne

Thanks for this excellent piece of info; I shall use it on the indents question. Many thanks.

Chris

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Hi Suzanne

Daniel Jackson appears to have gone silent on my main question. Would you be able to help me, please?

Chris

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I wish I could help. Black is obviously not going to work, and Automatic should work, but if it doesn't, I don't know what to suggest. Maybe there's something in your HTML settings that might account for this? That would be File | Options | Advanced: Web Options: Fonts, but there's no color setting there.
Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
Screen shots captured with TechSmith's Snagit

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I brought in an IT professional and he found the problem to be with the Microsoft facility for saving the Word.doc as an html file.  In doing so, it added spurious font colour definitions.

One solution was to open the html file in Notepad and go through the Styles (ie from <head> to <head>), deleting all references to colour and definition.

The other solution was to download a new Word program (in this case Kingsoft Writer) and use that to save my Microsoft Word.doc as an html file. No spurious colour definitions were added.

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Last updated October 5, 2021 Views 126 Applies to: