Forcing Users to Color Print

[Hyper]

Greetings,

I have an excel colour document (red, white & grey) which I want users
to print in colour ONLY. I use the grey font as a shadow font which
users can write over in pen.
The problem arises when they print it in black & white; even the faint
grey font appears in black.

How can I overcome this? Is there a way to prevent black and white
printing of a document?
Or can I possibly modify the doc such that it prints OK in colour but
looks illegible in black and white?

I'm prepared to use VBA or any method possible & I'm open to all
suggestions!

Thanks in advance,
Hyper

 

[Dave Peterson]

Maybe you can make it easier to print for them.

Create/Record a macro that prints exactly what you want the way you want it
printed.

Then plop a button on the worksheet that runs that macro.

You could even make sure that the print won't work if they use regular methods.

This goes behind the ThisWorkbook module:

Option Explicit
Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
MsgBox "Please print using the button!"
Cancel = True
End Sub

And in your code that prints, you'll want to disable events before printing:

Sub YourRoutine()
'do your setup
application.enableevents = false
'do the print
application.enableevents = true
end sub

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

ps. If the user disable macros or events, all this stuff won't be effective.

 

[Hyper]

That's great Dave,
A Print Macro looks like the best way to go to ensure conformity.
I'll need to test it out some more.

Many Thanks for your help,
Hyper