Black Isn't Black

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Bill Martin - 16 Jan 2006 22:11 GMT

I have a Dell 962 inkjet printer. With all other applications black is black --
even other Office applications like Excel. With Word however it seems that it
trys to create black by mixing colors and ends up with an ugly dark green color
for text.

I find that if I go into the printer controls and tell it to print all color in
B&W then I do get true black. Obviously I don't want to disable color on the
printer though, or have to change the printer controls every time I use Word.

I've also tried going into Word and telling it to use Black for the color rather
than the Default (which is also black). Whatever I do, Word seems intent on
telling the printer to mix colors to get black rather than just using the black
cartridge.

Presumably there's some bit of configuration I can do within Word to make it
work like Excel and other apps do by default. Can someone direct me to it
however? I haven't been able to locate it with the normal Help methods.

Thanks.

Bill

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 18 Jan 2006 20:57 GMT

Maybe in the Printer Properties dialog, there is a setting for printing in
Black and White or Color and that if the later is selected, it mixes the
colors to print Black. If that's the case, change the setting to Black and
aWhite and see it that is better. Otherwise, contact Dell support.

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>I have a Dell 962 inkjet printer. With all other applications black is
>black --
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> Bill

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Bill Martin - 18 Jan 2006 22:25 GMT

> Maybe in the Printer Properties dialog, there is a setting for printing in
> Black and White or Color and that if the later is selected, it mixes the
> colors to print Black. If that's the case, change the setting to Black and
> aWhite and see it that is better. Otherwise, contact Dell support.

---------

It's not a printer (Dell) issue - it's a Word (Microsoft) issue. All other
software, including Excel does it right. I don't want to change all printer
properties and never again print in color for the convenience of this one Word
program when the whole rest of the world works properly.

Bill

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 19 Jan 2006 05:15 GMT

Sorry,

If you tell Word to print in colour, that is what it will do.

Install a second instance of the printer and set the properties of one for
colour and the properties of the other for black and white.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>> Maybe in the Printer Properties dialog, there is a setting for printing
>> in
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Bill

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Bill Martin - 19 Jan 2006 15:12 GMT

> Sorry,
>
> If you tell Word to print in colour, that is what it will do.
>
> Install a second instance of the printer and set the properties of one for
> colour and the properties of the other for black and white.

-----------

I like the suggestion. That's something I hadn't thought of. I am surprised
that Word and Excel, both in the same package, apparently handle printing
differently. One might have thought they'd share that code. Outlook works
correctly too.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Bill

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 20 Jan 2006 21:18 GMT

Word, more than the other applications in the Office suite, takes more
advantage of the capability of the active printer.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>> Sorry,
>>
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Bill

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