report prints with gray background- wasting ink (1 Viewer)

Hi,
I'm running into a problem where parts of a Report are printing with a gray background. Not all of the report does this, just certain sections. Background colors aren't set to anything.

I did find this thread:
http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=16054&highlight=background+print+color

problem is.. the print IS from a report-- and I don't want to see a color on screen, I want it to NOT print gray.

any suggestions where to start?

Thanks

If Access is sending a white background to a printer and the printer is giving it a gray shade, there are a couple of things I would check.

1st. - check the background color settings not only on the detail sections but any headers and footers. By default, Access will sometimes add color to the headers and footers different from the detail sections. But color can be fully controlled on ALL sections.

2nd. - test whether your printer has color capability. If it does, print that report in color (one time only) to see what it thinks it is printer. That might help by letting you know what color you are looking for in code or on the report.

3rd. - test whether a word document or an excel spreadsheet has any color sections you weren't expecting. (Would point to hardware or device driver issue if more than one product is doing it.)

4th - when you get this grey background, measure its size. Does it correspond to the size of your report's detail area? Does it go all the way out from detail area margins to edge of paper?

5th - have you ever played with "Document Styles" in either Word or Access - these styles provide definitions of how a blank document would look, and therefore act as templates. If you have a template with a non-white background, it might occur that you are printing a white report on a non-white style. It is theoretically possible that you could have color settings on a printer that are more sensitive than on your screen, such as having a so-so video card and a photo-quality printer.

I don't know offhand why you are seeing what you report. But with a little bit of luck you might find what you wanted.

Thanks,

I'll give these a try and get back with my results.

Ok
I ran through your list of suggestions----

1: checked background on headers/footers and details-- all are white.

2: Not really sure I understood this one. I've printed the document on multiple printers with the same results-the gray/grey background prints

3. All other programs print fine from all printers- Issue is only with Access, and only with Reports.

4. The gray only fills in the part of the page used by the report-- (the report is set to print in an area 6.5 inches wide.) margins and empty space are blank

5. I've been trying to find where to set these "Document Styles" in Access, but have come up empty handed. Report is using "Normal" template-- do you know the default location for this- I could not locate it.

also, the computer in question is less than a year old and has pretty decent specs-- I am inclined to think it is not a screen/printer mis-match.

I did notice that this ONLY occurs for reports-- and occurs in reports on all databases, this is what makes me think it may be a change in the default template.

I think I have found a solution to this problem (after years of it bugging me!).

For me it was always the background of the second record that turned gray, this was because the "Alternate Back Color" property of the detail section of the report was not set.

To do this you need to open up the property sheet, select 'Detail' from the drop down list, then in the 'Format' tab, you can set both 'Back Color' and 'Alternate Back Color'

JohnC86, a similar problem has been bugging me for 5 months. An image in a report was grey in the background depending on whether the last background color on the last row in a sub-report was white or grey. So, I had deduced that the problem had something to do with Alternate Back Color. But the property wasn't set, so I discounted it. Setting the Alternate Back Color to white corrected the image and to my surprise, the sub-report still correctly displays the alternate background color on the report rows. Thank you!