Sending files to a commercial printer - need help with gray scale!!

[James E Middleton]

I'm having some problems getting a book to print with proper shades of gray
formatting in tables and text boxes. Long story short, my printer has told
me that the formatting for gray can be between 10 & 15 %. Could anyone tell
me what the RGB values have to be for grey scale to print with these values
(10 or 15%)? I can't find a reference anywhere.



Currently, I am using 166,166,166. My best guess is that's around 20%, but
when I get the material back from the printer, the gray scale, even at that
level is washed out.



I know, time to look for a new printer. but for the time being.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Go to www.nattyware.com download Pixie (free), It gives the color values on your
screen in all formats. Tiny application.
Have you tried using the commercial printing options in Publisher?

 

[James E Middleton]

Mary! You saved my life. That program is fantastic. Although it doesn't give
percentage of grayscale, it's so handy. After sending samples to my printer,
he told me that the grayscale needed to be adjusted. I had 5 books, 540
pages, with thousands of text boxes and rows in tables formatted with gray
scale, all to be sent to the printer by the end of the day yesterday.



What a nightmare. After doing the basic layouts, I place shapes over the
text boxes and tables, and then group them. Normally, when I do this the
only way to check the values is to un-group the objects, bring the text box
or table to the top, and go through formatting to check.



With that program, I was able to mouse over the objects and check without
taking them all apart. I was able to reformat all the grayscale in question
in a matter of hours instead of days.



It's amazing; I work on these files at home and at my office on two
different computers, with two different printers. Although the grayscale
appears to be the same color on the monitors at home and at work, the RGB
values differ by 7-10%. Not only that, even if the RGB values match exactly,
the output from both printers differ by at least that much. I'll never
'eyeball it' again.


BTW, I figured this out by using Word!

Precent = RGB

0 = 255,255,255

10 = 230,230,230

12.5 = 224,224,224

15 =217,217,217

20 = 204,204,204

25 = 192,192,192

30 = 179,179,179

35 = 166,166,166



Thanks again!



Jim

 

[Mary Sauer]

Glad everything worked out, James. Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated.