[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]
Hello,
PowerPoint will default to printing in grayscale mode, when printing to a
device which cannot produce color output. Since many presentations use
color heavily (primarily for on-screen display), PowerPoint automatically
adjust the color output so that objects which contrast well on-screen (in
color) will also contrast well when printed in either grayscale or black &
white mode. Otherwise color presentations would commonly result in very
dark, grayscale output using lots of toner when printed to black and white
devices. It's this automatic adjustment which is most likely causing the
unwanted line to print.
The default adjustments can, however, be overridden and customized on a
per-object basis if you find that the automatic decisions by PowerPoint are
not what you want. There's lots of information how to do this in the
PowerPoint help files. Simply query on "print grayscale", "print black and
white", or "print troubleshooting" and you should get a good list of
applicable topics.
Additionally, you can preview how your presentation will print in either of
the three print modes (Color, Grayscale, Pure Black and White) using the
Print Preview command in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 (so that you can adjust
the behavior for the objects that don't preview the way you want, before
printing). In all version of PowerPoint that have the grayscale/black and
white printing feature you can also change to grayscale/black and white
view while editing your presentation and, while in this view, you can
adjust how selected objects print when using the grayscale print option.
For your specific presentation, simply switch your view to Grayscale view
(or Black and White view if you are using PowerPoint 2000 and earlier), go
to the slide containing the object that doesn't print as desired,
RIGHT+CLICK on the object and from the context menu choose change the
Grayscale (or Black and White) setting property until you find a setting
which gives you the desired results when printing using the grayscale print
option.
If you (or anyone else reading this message) have other ideas about how
color presentations should print to black and white printers and/or how to
make this feature more useful (without having to resort to programming or
add-ins), don't forget to send your feedback to Microsoft at:
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp
As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also why it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible. Each submission should be
a single suggestion (not a list of suggestions).
John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows
For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto
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