trouble printing white on black background

[jeana]

Hey Masters,

My father called me with the following problem: it seems that he can no longer print white lettering on a black background, although the print preview shows the correct formatting.

This problem seems to have occurred around the time when I wiped his drive and upgraded him to Win 98 SE, but we're not sure whether the problem occurred before or after the upgrade (his 95 installation was terribly corrupt and would take 10 minutes to close documents!) He also has MS Office 97 installed. He has, I believe, an HP Laserjet 5L? and some other printer: an Epson? Unfortunately, he lives some distance away and I can't just run over there and play with the problem until it disappears.

I seem to recall from somewhere that this might be a fairly common problem... Any idea what could be causing it?

[CMonster]

white on black? I think he must be out of toner http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Mitch]

Hi, You can try using the driver for a LaserjetIII...Hope this helps...Mitch

[Bleeding Edge]

You know what may have happened? He could have been running an upgraded version of Word with either Service Realease-1 or SR-2 patch that addressed this particular problem. When you upgraded to 98SE, you may have missed patching Word. If the fix was in SR-2 he has a temporary problem, if you don't have the patch. Microsoft pulled it from their site last month. They should be putting it back up in 1 1/2 or 2 weeks.

As Mitch mentioned, the same can be said of the printer driver. He may have been using a different driver or an updated driver previous to the system upgrade you performed.

So try downloading and installing the Word patch and/or the latest printer drivers. More likely print drivers.

Check the Help\AboutWord for the version number. The patched one will have the SR1 or SR2 designation.

I don't know (because I tend to be dense) if CM is jokingly saying by printing white on black so frequently, the toner must be running out and unable to print those pages?

To understand what is going on and how it relates to your situation read the following "White Text" section in the following article. support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q111/8/84.asp (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q111/8/84.asp) You can do a search for 'white text' for Word97. There is a number of articles on its use. support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?SPR= (http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?SPR=)


[This message has been edited by Bleeding Edge (edited 08-05-99).]

[jeana]

Thanks! and especially thanks for the page links, Bleeding Edge! The driver/Word patch story sounds like a good candidate for what's happening with my dad's computer. It does look like it will have to wait till I next visit home, though, since explaining how to download and install a driver(or how to edit a .INI file!) to my father might well drive me crazy. I'll post again when I've taken my best shot at it...

[jeana]

Problem solved with new drivers.

This must be a general problem with Win98/Word97, as my father has a Gateway desktop with Win98SE hooked up to a Lexmark Optra R printer, and a Sony vaio laptop with old Win98 connected to an HP Laserjet 5L, and neither of them would print white on black properly. The "print TrueType as graphics" fix did not work.

Well, I spent several hours fixing up and optimizing Dad's computers, and now they work just dandy! He's boasting that he's got the smartest daughter in town... muchas gracias, everyone, for helping me shine up my reputation with the old man!