Office for Android just got a big feature users have been waiting for

The Microsoft Office for Android app now has a dark mode, one with a pleasing black background surrounded by dark grey menus and borders. Users have two different options for enabling the dark mode, one that mirrors their device settings and the other that can be toggled on and off depending on your needs at any given time.

Dark mode has become increasingly popular and many platforms have added dark themes to their products based on user feedback. There are multiple benefits to dark mode — it removes the blinding white backgrounds that are uncomfortable to stare at in low-light environments, for example, and it can save battery life if your phone has an OLED display.

According to Microsoft, a dark mode for its Office mobile app has been a 'highly requested feature,' one now available to Android users. The app will present the dark theme if you have your device set to dark mode, but you can also open Settings and manually turn it on and off.

Microsoft says you'll need to download the latest version of the Office app for Android to use this new feature. Compared to some other dark modes offered by various platforms, Microsoft's dark theme is aesthetically pleasing and truly embraces black as its primary color.

The design makes it possible to easily discern different elements from each other while maintaining the overall black background. This same black background appears when you, for example, open a document; the text is presented as white.