Control how your presentation prints in B/W

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Problem

Things disappear or just plain look bad when you print your color presentation to a black and white printer.

Solution

You can control how virtually everything in your presentation prints to a b/w printer without affecting its appearance on screen (or on color printers) a bit.

In PowerPoint 2007

• On the View tab, click the mode you'll use for printing in the Color / Grayscale group.
• When you click Grayscale or B/W, PowerPoint displays a new Change Selected Object group where you can choose the way you'd like each shape on your slides to print.
• The settings you choose will only affect black and white printouts. Color printouts and slide shows will remain unchanged.

This example is for PowerPoint 2000. Later versions work similarly, but some of the menu choices and wording may be a little different.

In PowerPoint 97, you'll need to use View, Toolbars, Customize to put the Black and White option on the menu or a toolbar before you can use it. Otherwise, it works identically.

First, choose View, Color/Grayscale, Grayscale from the main menu (View, Black and White in older versions of PPT or View, Grayscale if you use a Mac)

PowerPoint now shows you, on screen, what your presentation will look like when printed to a black and white printer.

Right-click a shape or other object that doesn't look like you want it to, then choose Black and White from the popup menu.
Pick one of the options that appears on the flyout menu (ie, Automatic, Grayscale, etc.)

You can do this to the shapes on the slide masters as well to control the B/W printing appearance of the entire presentation.

When you're done, choose View Color/Grayscale, Color (View, Black and White in older versions) again to return the presentation to normal color view.

Contents © 1995 - 2008 Stephen Rindsberg, Rindsberg Photography, Inc. and members of the MS PowerPoint MVP team. You may link to this page but any form of unauthorized reproduction of this page's contents is expressly forbidden.

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