Formatting for printing issue

[RussellC]

I made a page with some tables and some of the cells are black with white text. How can I get the page to print like this? When I print it is has a white bg and grey text. Thanks.

[Nick_W]

Hmmmm.... Interesting. Have you tried specifying the colors in the CSS as opposed to HTML?

I'm not sure this would do it but that's what I'd try next...

Nick

[pageoneresults]

Sounds like you may have "print background colors" unchecked in your Printer Properties. Go to file > print > properties and see if this checkbox exists, then check it.

Unfortunately I don't think there is anyway to override the users setting for printing. In fact, I usually have mine unchecked as it saves on toner, especially when pages have full color backgrounds, eek!

[pageoneresults]

> I made a page with some tables and some of the cells are black with white text.

I always recommend that you not use white text against dark backgrounds because of the printing issue. Give the white text a color like #efefef so that when a user does have their background printing turned off, at least they will see the copy.

P.S. Also, white text + white page background = spam filter trip. If you are using white text, then hopefully your page backgrounds have a color other than #ffffff. If not, you may be asking for trouble.

[edited by: pageoneresults at 7:38 pm (utc) on July 16, 2002]

[mivox]

Most browsers have a default printing setting that does not print background colors... most users will not be willing to dig around in their browser settings long enough to find the setting and change it.

I'd either do an alternate design without the black backgrounds as a "printer friendly" page, or set up two separate CSS stylesheets: one for media type "print" and one for media type "screen"... Set the table cell backgrounds and type colors in the style sheets, and make sure the "print" style doesn't have that problem.

[RussellC]

Thanks for the input. This is actually for a page that is only for printing purposes. It is basically form results. Customer fills out form then they get a page to print. I guess there is no real way for them to be able to print it out as seen on the screen.

[Nick_W]

Good call mivox!

I think though that the best answer is just to leave it. The browser defaults are set that way for a reason: It will look horrible ;)

And as Pageone said, black text on white background is best. People have been doing it that way for about 3000yrs, there's a reason for it....

Nick

[txbakers]

Funny, that was one of the main selling points for the Mac back in 1984 - black on white. What a concept, and it was laughed at by the DOS/green screen crowd.

Last year I was asked for some advice on a site and I specifically told him to ditch the reverse text. The owner said that they designed it on purpose in reverse to go "for effect." I just nodded and slowly left the room.

Reverse text does have it's places, but used judiciously only.

[RussellC]

I know what you guys mean. I would never use that kind of formatting for a normal page. This, however, is different. I was trying to format an html page to look like our current customer paperwork. Guess I will have to find a better way to do it.

[Nick_W]

You might create a pdf that would load into ie or be downloadable on others?

With PHP you could create one on the fly but I've never done it...

Nick