Now, the most common reason to change the page color — or background color — in Google Docs is probably going to be eye strain. Especially for those who are using “dark” or “night” mode-theming elsewhere to alleviate that. After all, loading up Google Docs presents you with an almost purely white screen. But some may also want to change the color for thematic or presentation purposes. Maybe a grey or black color works better from a design or aesthetic perspective and you’re not making a text-heavy document. Or, perhaps, you’re looking to give your document a bit of color to make it more fun for children to read. Whatever your reason, the ability to change the color is incredibly useful, if not the most intuitive feature to find. So let’s dig in and see how this works.
You can change the background color in Google Docs
First, it’s worth pointing out that you can actually change the background or page color in Google Docs directly from your phone. Rather than just on your computer or Chromebook. But you’ll have more options on your computer. At least for now. Additionally, this doesn’t change the page background unless you’re working in the “Pageless” view. If you’re working in the default “Pages” view, where pages are shown with a background-style border, it will change the color of your page. Not the background behind that. Now, it’s also worth noting that this is quite different from the dark mode theming available for Google Docs and other Workspace files. In fact, this will change the entire background color to effectively any color you’re comfortable working in. But it also isn’t widely rolled out just yet. So you may not yet see it on your mobile device. For computers, there appears to be a wider array of colors available as well. As shown in the example images below our guide. Fortunately, regardless of where you’re editing Google Docs, the option appears in exactly the same place. With one or two minor caveats we’ll discuss directly in the steps below. So you shouldn’t need a separate how-to guide. Let’s begin.