Publisher Black and White Printing

[Severn]

I am creating a newsletter with Publisher with the intention of PDF'ing it so
that users can download it and print it off themselves. If users use a black
and white printer, the colors don't contrast enough (e.g. yellow on black).
Is there anyway I can use a light font with a dark background without
resorting to white on black?

 

[bjm]

Even with a color printer (or viewing on the screen) is this legible?
Why are you using it?

Many people find such a color scheme very difficult, especially in any sort
of body-text size (i.e. not Large Headers) -- you have to *really want* to
read what it says.
bj

 

[John Inzer]

I am creating a newsletter with Publisher with the intention of
PDF'ing it so that users can download it and print it off themselves.
If users use a black and white printer, the colors don't contrast
enough (e.g. yellow on black). Is there anyway I can use a light font
with a dark background without resorting to white on black?

====================================
Printing a black background wastes a lot of ink.
Why not a white background?

--

J. Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Severn]

Yes, this is legible. In fact, it's this free template:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102564581033.aspx?CategoryID=CT101043281033

I am referring to the orange text on the sidebars. To be extra safe and
reader friendly, I am changing it to be yellow but still when I preview as a
black and white printer, it shows up as a dark font. I find this very
surprising as I expected it to show up as off-white. I'm wondering if it is
a program setting? Once I had white font (at least I thought it was white)

 

[Severn]

The dark background is just for certain sections like sidebars to give more
visual interest. Here is the link of the template that I downloaded for free
from Microsoft:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102564581033.aspx?CategoryID=CT101043281033. It looks good on screen and color printers.

However, the orange of the template isn't showing on black and white
printers and I've tried yellow, light green. I need an accent color that
isn't white for a heading that would contrast when reduced to black and white.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Have you thought about using a PDF printer? When I use Acrobat as my printer and
designate black and white the orange text contrasts quite well.
There are free PDF converters around you can experiment with; www.primopdf.com
is mentioned here often.

 

[bjm]

Yes, this is legible. In fact, it's this free template:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102564581033.aspx?CategoryID=CT101043281033

I've seen publications like that. It's somewhat OK when it's printed on
very-high-quality commercial printers (though glossy paper can make it all
but impossible), but the sidebars are still a bit more difficult to read,
therefore more likely I'll skip if they don't start off looking *really
promising* & then keeping up the promise, & not more than a paragraph or two
at that -- but don't do so well on home printers.

I like to make my newsletters as easy as possible for my readers -- nothing
overly fancy ("designer"), try not to squeeze the print, plenty of white
space, etc i.e. function first, then any fancy-form I'm in the mood for. But
then I & many of my (small club) readers are in the aging demographic nobody
cares about -- you know, the one that advertisers (which I don't have any of
anyway) think are only interested in "diapers & dentures" (& maybe funeral
homes).
bj