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Changing Arduino IDE theme colors

Published: 21 February 2017
Last updated: 13 February 2023

Changing the Arduino IDE tab color

The text inside the tabs of the Arduino IDE is hard to read because the background color is dark blue-green. You can change the color to enhance the visibility:
Arduino tab color dark blue-green backgroundArduino tab color dark blue-green background

Arduino tab color changed to yellow for better visibilityArduino tab color changed to yellow for better visibility

To change the color, replace these files in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\lib\theme\ with these files, which you can download at GitHub:

  • buttons.svg
  • tab-unsel-left.svg
  • tab-unsel-menu.svg
  • tab-unsel-mid.svg
  • tab-unsel-right.svg

All instances of blue-green #4db7bb have been replaced by yellow #ebef0b . You should do this again if you install a new version of Arduino. Who can help to further improve the color scheme?

Changing the Arduino comment font color

Comments in the Arduino editor are hard to read because the color is light grey, I wonder why this color is still being used. This color can't be changed as usual in the preference.txt file, but has to be set in the theme.txt file, which can be found at this location:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\lib\theme\

You can download the changed theme.txt file at GitHub here.

As an example, the comment font colors are changed to blue here:
# TEXT - COMMENTS
#editor.comment1.style = #434F54,plain -> #0920ed,plain
#editor.comment2.style = #95a5a6,plain -> #0920ed,plain

Hard to read Arduino light grey comment fontsHard to read Arduino light grey comment fonts

Change the Arduino comment font color to blueChange the Arduino comment font color to blue