Q: Grey text areas in page thumbnail display

I don't know! The project was converted from iPhoto. I got a message telling me that the original iPhoto theme is no longer available so the software selected a new one. I can find no "information" or "Properties" control I could simply use as a non-destructive way to find out. I do see the 'change theme' menu item, but I worry that it will simply show me a list of things to choose from without highlighting the one I already have.  (If I don't know which one is mine, then how do I chose the same thing to have the effect of making no choice at all? Is there a cancel option?) Photos does not appear to have been designed to preserve your work when you make changes. IMO this is a design flaw - lack of user perspective & understanding - If I work hard to put data into my project then the software should work just as hard to make sure it doesn't get destroyed, even if I do something drastic like changing page layout & theme.

Can you tell from 'layout options?' I see a selection of various combinations of photos and text boxes. Up to 36 photos, then Maps, the Spread...

Anyway, please help me get the information you need without messing up my document.

Is there some way I can send you the document to try for yourself?

Albert

It's the Portfolio Theme. The first two pages are text pages with two text boxes on each one. The third page is a one photo page with a horizontal split for text at the bottom of the page. The text has two areas, one for a heading and the other for the body. The background of the page itself is white, but the text area background is dark grey. I changed the text background to orange and then back to white. This clears the problem while the book is open, but it returns the next time I open it. I can't tell if white in the background color blocks at the bottom of the layout window is really white or transparent. There's no way for me to truly know how the application is constructed, but it looks to me as if  layer in the page imaging scheme isn't being initialized properly. As if 'white background' and 'empty background' meant the same thing to the programmer.

I duplicated the project as you suggested. The original document has grey backgrounds for both page 1 and page 2. The copy has grey backgrounds for the text areas of page 1, 2 and 3. Page 4 is another text page with two text areas, but it seems to be unaffected.

Original Document. Only pages 1 & 2 were grey the first time I opened it, but after opening it again the first three pages are grey.

Duplicate copy. All three pages were grey when I opened the project the first time, but after switching back and forth to the original document the middle page appears white. It looks as if the program tries to figure the background out upon opening. It either doesn't save the information it needs to restore the project correctly, or it cannot use the information properly.