CSS methods of enabling background shading when printing

(or any other solid method)

[jcmatador]

...even if the brower has it turned off.

I have a client that has a specialized need to have shading behind certain elements of the page even when the browser's setting is to have background images and colors turned off.

We can create an XHTML file that contains two layers, one of top of the other, that has images on the bottom that match the height and width of the rows above. Certainly possible, but it requires exact knowledge of heights and widths and is likely to not be as flexible as we would like.

I am looking for any ideas, suggestions, methods, etc to accomplish this. Ideally, it would be totally transparent to the end user (ie. would rather not install, for example, an activeX component that temporarily changes to the setting for the user behind the sceen).

Thanks in advance!

[edited by: encyclo at 4:56 pm (utc) on Dec. 11, 2006]
[edit reason] no email addresses please, see forum charter [/edit]

[nigassma]

I'm curious as to how many users your client thinks have background images AND colors turned off? Might as well just turn of all styles and surf the web through text only browsers.

[jcmatador]

lol - background images and colors turned off FOR PRINTING. :)

It's a basic setting in most browsers which by default is usually off.

[Setek]

Yes, which by default is off, because it saves ink that way.

There isn't really a way to change a UA's printing settings. But there is a CSS way to imitate it, I suppose.

1. Have an image

   <img />

   that's set to

   display: none;

   in your screen stylesheet; and then
   
2. In your print stylesheet, position that image how you require - beware that there are still limitations with complex positioning in print.

Still... it's a waste of ink if you do too much. In most cases a small header graphic with plain, nicely-sized (semi-large) text is much better.