Design icons for add-in commands

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  Add-in commands add buttons, text, and icons to the Office UI. Your add-in command buttons should provide meaningful icons and labels that clearly identify the action the user is taking when they use a command. This article provides stylistic and production guidelines that help you design icons that integrate seamlessly with Office. 
  

Office icon design principles

The Office 2013 release of the Office desktop clients includes refreshed iconography. The overriding stylistic change is reduction. The new icons include only essential communicative elements. Non-essential elements including perspective, gradients, and light source are removed. The simplified icons support faster parsing of commands and controls. Follow this style to best fit with Office.

Office icons are based on the following design principles: 

• Modern interpretation of Office icon collection 

• Fresh yet familiar 

• Simple, clear, and direct 

The following image shows icons that apply the modern design principles.

Icon guidelines

Follow these guidelines when you create your icons: 

• Stick to the 1px grid and use a bitmap editing tool for best results.  

• Redraw, don't resize. As you resize your icons for larger or smaller sizes, take the time to redraw cutouts, corners, and rounded edges to maximize line clarity. 

• Remove artifacts that make your icon look messy.

• Don't reuse Office UI Fabric icons in the Office ribbon or contextual menu. Fabric icons are stylistically different and will not match. 

• Avoid relying on your logo or brand to communicate what an add-in command does. Brand marks aren't always recognizable at smaller icon sizes and when modifiers are applied. Brand marks often conflict with Office ribbon icon styles, and can compete for user attention in a saturated environment.

• Use a white fill for accessibility. Most objects in your icons will require a white background to be legible across Office UI themes and in high-contrast modes.  

• Use the PNG format with a transparent background. 

• Avoid localizable content in your icons, including typographic characters, indications of paragraph rags, and question marks. 

• Don't reuse visual metaphors for different commands. Using the same icon for different actions can cause confusion. 

• Make your button labels clear and succinct. Use a combination of visual and textual information to convey meaning. 

Icon size recommendations and requirements

Office 2016 desktop icons are bitmap images. Different sizes will render depending on the user's DPI setting and touch mode. Include all eight supported sizes to create the best experience in all supported resolutions and contexts. The following are the supported sizes - three are required:

• 16 px (Required)

• 20 px

• 24 px

• 32 px (Required)

• 40 px

• 48 px

• 64 px (Recommended, best for Mac)

• 80 px (Required) 

Make sure to redraw your icons for each size rather than shrink them to fit.

Icon anatomy and layout

Office icons are typically comprised of a base element with action and conceptual modifiers overlayed. Action modifiers represent concepts such as add, open, new, or close. Conceptual modifiers represent status, alteration, or a description of the icon. 

To create commands that align with the Office UI, follow layout guidelines for the base element and modifiers. This ensures that your commands look professional and that your customers will trust your add-in. If you make exceptions to these guidelines, do so intentionally.

The following image shows the layout of base elements and modifiers in an Office icon.

• Center base elements in the pixel frame with empty padding all around.

• Place action modifiers on the top left. 

• Place conceptual modifiers on the bottom right.

• Limit the number of elements in your icons. At 32px, limit the number of modifiers to a maximum of two. At 16px, limit the number of modifiers to one.

Place base elements consistently across sizes. If base elements can't be centered in the frame, align them to the top left, leaving the extra pixels on the bottom right. For best results, apply the padding guidelines listed in the following table.

Icon size	Padding around base element
16px	0
20px	1px
24px	1px
32px	2px
40px	2px
48px	3px
64px	5px
80px	5px

All modifiers should have a 1px transparent cutout between each element, including the background. Elements should not directly overlap. Create whitespace between rules and edges. Modifiers can vary slightly in size, but use these dimensions as a starting point.

Icon size	Modifier size
16px	9px
20px	10px
24px	12px
32px	14px
40px	20px
48px	22px
64px	29px
80px	38px

Icon colors

Office icons have a limited color palette. Use the colors listed in the following table to guarantee seamless integration with the Office UI. Apply the following guidelines to the use of color: 

• Use color to communicate meaning rather than for embellishment. It should highlight or emphasize an action, status, or an element that explicitly differentiates the mark.  

• If possible, use only one additional color beyond gray. Limit additional colors to two at the most.

• Colors should have a consistent appearance in all icon sizes. Office icons have slightly different color palettes for different icon sizes. 16px and smaller icons are slightly darker and more vibrant than 32px and larger icons. Without these subtle adjustments, colors appear to vary across sizes. 

Color name	RGB	Hex	Color	Category
Text Gray (80)	80, 80, 80	#505050		Text
Text Gray (95)	95, 95, 95	#5F5F5F		Text
Text Gray (105)	105, 105, 105	#696969		Text
Dark Gray 32	128, 128, 128	#808080		32 and above
Medium Gray 32	158, 158, 158	#9E9E9E		32 and above
Light Gray ALL	179, 179, 179	#B3B3B3		All sizes
Dark Gray 16	114, 114, 114	#727272		16 and below
Medium Gray 16	144, 144, 144	#909090		16 and below
Blue 32	77, 130, 184	#4d82B8		32 and above
Blue 16	74, 125, 177	#4A7DB1		16 and below
Yellow ALL	234, 194, 130	#EAC282		All sizes
Orange 32	231, 142, 70	#E78E46		32 and above
Orange 16	227, 142, 70	#E3751C		16 and below
Pink ALL	230, 132, 151	#E68497		All sizes
Green 32	118, 167, 151	#76A797		32 and above
Green 16	104, 164, 144	#68A490		16 and below
Red 32	216, 99, 68	#D86344		32 and above
Red 16	214, 85, 50	#D65532		16 and below
Purple 32	152, 104, 185	#9868B9		32 and above
Purple 16	137, 89, 171	#8959AB		16 and below

Icons in high contrast modes

Office icons are designed to render well in high contrast modes. Foreground elements are well differentiated from backgrounds to maximize legibility and enable recoloring. In high contrast modes, Office will recolor any pixel of your icon with a red, green, or blue value less than 190 to full black. All other pixels will be white. In other words, each RGB channel is assessed where 0-189 values are black and 190-255 values are white. Other high-contrast themes recolor using the same 190 value threshold but with different rules. For example, the high-contrast white theme will recolor all pixels greater than 190 opaque but all other pixels as transparent. Apply the following guidelines to maximize legibility in high-contrast settings:

• Aim to differentiate foreground and background elements along the 190 value threshold.

• Follow Office icon visual styles.

• Use colors from our icon palette.

• Avoid the use of gradients.

• Avoid large blocks of color with similar values.

See also

• Add-in development best practices

• Add-in commands for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint