Text box Colour Print problem

[Dr Hackenbush]

XP Pro and MS Word 2007 all SP's and updates currently available installed.

I have text boxes with 1 colour gradient fill , transparancy 85% at top of
box to no fill at bottom.

When printed the transparency is being ignored and colour printing at full
opacity.

This doc goes out to around 300 people and it happens on all printers.

Here is a link to a screenshot of the doc in Word and a pdf which shows
exactly whats happening, even doing a conversion to pdf reproduces the
problem.

http://tinypic.com/r/x1dlzp/5

I have looked through all the Word options but cant see anything remotely
connected to the problem and have looked for help on a couple of forums but
so far no replies so this is my last chance saloon 1

Hope someone can help me out

Thanks

 

[Mary Sauer]

Create a rectangle the size of your text box, fill with your gradient. Copy,
paste special as a .png. Send the .png behind your text box.

 

[Dr Hackenbush]

Hi there
thanks for the reply

Tried as you suggested but still the same, also tried gif and jpeg .
Have even uninstalled and reinstalled office but no difference.
Created pdf using Word save as and also Nitro pdf but exactly the same, all
instructions to print regarding colour transparency are being ignored .

Have tried creating doc from scratch rather than existing docs and still the
same

I am at a loss to work this one out, no other app does this, Adobe InDesign
& Illustrator and others all fine, but I have no choice but to produce this
doc using Word

 

[CyberTaz]

Then it may be to your advantage to create the graphic in one of those apps,
export in a usable format that supports the gradients at the brightness
levels you want, then insert those into the Word document. When the file is
created by an actual graphics editor the color values are adjusted based on
interpolations methods appropriate for the graphic file format being used.

I'm not 100% certain, but I don't believe the "Transparency" settings in
Word actually change the color values. It appears they only modify the
brightness for display purposes & that those settings only exist within the
document. The shapes aren't being saved as 'image files' of any sort... At
least most printing devices - even commercial presses - don't seem to
respect transparency settings made by Word's convenience tools.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Dr Hackenbush]

Thanks , thats what I have started doing using InDesign
Makes me wonder how much would be left of Word if MS took out all the
"convenience" tools, Wordpad probably !

 

[CyberTaz]

No, IMHO what would be left is the most powerful word processing program on
the planet which would be able to do what it's supposed to do far more
efficiently & require considerably less disk space. That would not only
contribute to more stable files but would also free up more room to add
additional features & capabilities for producing typeset documents

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac