switch off colours for printing

[AmyTaylor]

I have an excel spreadsheet that contains a lot of cells with a dark blue background. Some users will be be printing this on a colour printer, is there a way to either:
(a) switch of the colour
(b) change the colour to a grey scale? so that it doesnt waste ink !?

Hope someone can help me.
Amy xxx

[dominicb]

Good afternoon AmyTaylor

This is not that hard to do but I can't give you precise guidance because it is the printer driver software that does the trick - not Excel, so different manufacturers software handles it slightly differently. However it can be accessed from Excel.

File > Print and click on the Properties box

You may have to go into advanced settings to find it, but it's not a very complicated dialog box so should be easy enough to find...

HTH

DominicB

[AmyTaylor]

Hi Dominic, yes, thanks for the reply.

Is there a way to change all coloured cells into a grey cell perhaps??

Thanks

Amy xxx

[dominicb]

Hi Amy

Thanks for the feedback - always appreciated.

Does the answer I suggested not work - you should have an option to print greyscale through the way I suggested.

I have actually found out what could be a better option for you - go to File > Page Setup and under the print heading check the Black and white box. That will force Excel to ignore the colours rather than relying on your printer driver software.

Is that any better?

DominicB

[AmyTaylor]

Hi, I dont have anything for greyscale, and when I select "blank and white" it ignores the colours completely and makes everything white!!

Amy

[dominicb]

Hi Amy

You'll have to explain what you mean by "makes everything white"? Do none of the methods I suggested work? There is no way of changing all the workbooks colours at a stroke - a piece of VBA could probbaly do it but not restore the original colours as they were. I've just tried both my suggestions on XL2000 and XL2003 and they worked perfectly.

On a different note, I notice you posted a couple of weeks ago regarding a UDF that wasn't updating that no-one relied to. If you still need to know, this is what you need:

Application.Volatile True

The above line needs to be put in the function code near the top, say just after the Function() call line.

And don't you dare tell me that doesn't work..!

HTH

DominicB

[AmyTaylor]

Dominic, thanks for the reply regarding the UDF - it works perfectly !
And dont worry, i wouldnt dare tell you it doesnt work !!

Thank you - Amy xx

[dominicb]

Hi Amy

Thanks for the feedback - always much appreciated.

DoimnicB