Dell forum: Printing colour document on black and white Dell 5200

Thanks for the interest.
The problem is not just with Word but PDF files (which won't let me change colours) and stuff from the internet where most IT papers go in for colour headings, titles, emphasised words/phrases and other 'non-main' text. Makes them virtually impossible to read. Bring back pure black and white.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4697093_change-font-color-adobe-reader.html

Why do you write PDF files don't allow color changes?

I don't write them - they are downloaded form various sites in forms I can't alter.

Bob linked to a page about changing font color in Adobe READER . So it's unclear why you shouldn't be able to use that feature in the downloaded pdf's.

Did you already try other readers like Foxit and Nitro (both are free)?

If it did work in XP with the same printer, it might be a driver issue. Are you using the latest Dell driver for that printer for Windows 7?

An option to consider is to buy a cheap color (inkjet) printer and use that for the printing of these documents. That's cheaper than buying a pdf-editor (and that might fail if the pdf is locked for editing).

Finally, in Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate you can install Virtual XP and use that to print. In Windows 7 Home you can install XP in Virtualbox (Virtualbox is free, XP isn't).

Kees

Kees

Thanks Bob and Kees. Bob's site I've tried but the instructions fail to give me colour/faint text to solid B&W. I'm beginning to think it IS a driver issue as I've checked all known boxes in all known options to point to B&W. When I went XP->Win7, I searched the web for drivers and downloaded everything that looked appropriate.
1. How do I find the CORRECT driver?
2. as an aside, how do I get HTML internet docs to print in larger font? Most of them that I access are coming out with problem 1. (the current one) and virtually unreadable font size (am using a magnifying glass)! As a sample, anyone care to look at the URL below and print it off?

http://www.ehow.com/how_4697093_change-font-color-adobe-reader.html

and let me know. Most of my copy is very faint and in what looks like 8pt (or less) font.

There seems to be a misunderstanding over the documents. I have NO control over them - they are mainly PDF, HTML and other documents downloaded from web sites, plus web pages simply viewed. I need to know how to tell my printer to interpret print what it sees as hex characters, in black and white and not fiddle about with colour.
If there is a way to change colours before printing , I can't see what it is.

There are other ways such as pasting it in Word and changing the color there.

Since the 3 types can be dealt with, there is a way to keep using your printer.
Bob

Thanks for the input Bob but my problem is more complex than that. Cut and Paste, when it is allowed by the document, offten loses formatting and certainly diagrams and pictures. Some PDF documents won't let you do anything with it except look at it and possibly print. Not sure if it will work with HTML docs on the screen but I'll try. Either way it's a pain having to fiddle about this way.
There must be a way to tell the printer to print everything it sees including diagrams but in pure B&W?

It appears that I may have been wrong in thinking you wanted to know how to get around this issue. I see that now and while I can share solution after solution I now see that you want what you had before and not a list of workarounds or procedures for each document type.

Sorry but for me I have no issue with the document types mentioned so far on laser black and white since I can deal with each with some process.

Why it seems OK to me is that I wrote my first program on a GE-210 and lived with far harder to use systems. If I have to put a document through some image processor to get the result then that's fine by me.
Bob

I'm still in a mess with tiny/faint HTML output on my printer and faint 'anything' else that isn't already pure B&W.
What about a new driver? Where do I get one?
Reminder: Everything was fine on XP and issues have arisen when moving to Win7 and upgrading Office products.
Terry

I think you know the issue well and the solutions as well. I don't want to upset you by writing them out here.
Bob