Hi Chris-

This is an interesting poser. I don't know that I'm right, but I have some
thoughts on it...

Word doesn't work on a concept of 'pages' as we think of it, nor does it
determine whether the job will be printed in color, B&W or grayscale. It
simply sends the doc info to the printer. It is the printer's settings that
determine how the job is rendered on paper as well as how many sheets are
going to be needed. (Obviously the printer can't generate color if the info
isn't in the file :) .)

It would seem that the count, then, also should be a matter of
interpretation by the printer's logic. Does it determine the count based on
the number of printed pages which actually contain color on each page or does
it count the number of pages printed in a job involving color regardless of
the number of pages in the job where color is actually used?

Regards |:>)

I suspect that the answer is "yes", i.e. the whole document is considered to
be coloured if the color option is set. Can you see the counter on the
machine itself? If you can, it would be a simple matter to run a short test.
Create a test document, put blue text on one page, black text on 2 other
pages, print the document and see how the color page count changes.

If this is the situation, this article may help keep the color page count
down

Controlling the Printer from Word VBA
Part 2: Using VBA to control Duplex, Color Mode and Print Quality
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=116