WD97: Gray Drawing Layer Lines Printed in Black on HP LaserJet (112451)

SYMPTOMS

When you create a gray-colored line for a drawing object (using the tools on the Drawing toolbar in Word for Windows), the line may be printed in black on Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet series printers. This behavior occurs with circles, ellipses, squares, arcs, freeform objects and autoshapes.

CAUSE

Word sends correct gray color instructions to the printer driver, which means Word is not responsible for this behavior. Some versions of the HP LaserJet Series printer drivers translate gray color formatting to black printer instructions for all shapes except the ellipse (except when using the Windows 95 printer driver).

Specifically, when a non-ellipse is formatted as gray, the printer driver sends a NULL brush and solid pen (pen width = 0) instruction, which tells the printer to print in black instead of gray. In contrast, for a gray- colored ellipse, the printer driver sends a brush instruction that corresponds to the Windows Universal Printer Driver (Unidrv.dll) instruction for dithered solid red color, which the HP LaserJet printer prints as gray.

This problem may occur with the following printers:

HP LaserJet
HP LaserJet II
HP LaserJet IIp+
HP LaserJet III
HP LaserJet IIIp
HP LaserJet IIIsi
HP LaserJet 4M/4P (HPPCL5E.DRV version 1.27)
HP LaserJet 4si (HPPCL5E.DRV version 1.27)
HP LaserJet 4si MX (HPPCL5E.DRV version 1.27)
HP LaserJet 4si version 3.78 (Windows 95 printer driver)
HP LaserJet 5

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use any of the following methods:

Method 1: Create an Object That Uses a Gray Fill

Depending on the type of drawing object needed, it may be possible to create the object that uses a gray fill, but to which you do not add a line color. Gray-colored object fills print correctly. For example, to create a gray-colored line, create instead a narrow rectangle that has no lines and uses a gray fill.

Method 2: Use a PostScript Printer Driver

If your printer supports PostScript, use a PostScript printer driver.

Method 3: Change the Graphics Mode from Vector to Raster

To change the graphics mode from vector to raster, follow these steps:

Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
Right-click the printer icon for your particular printer driver and click Properties.
Click the Graphics tab.
Under Graphics mode, select Use Raster Graphics, click Apply, and then click OK.