Great Gray Tones from a Black and White Printer

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 1, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

If you have a black and white printer (such as with most laser printers), you know that getting the right shade of gray printed on a document can be challenging. If you need to add shading to the cells of a table or to another object, such as an AutoShape, you probably know that choosing one of the shades of gray provided by Word can result in a muddy, tough-to-read background for text.

One way around this problem is to use an old photography trick when applying the shading. Select what you want to shade, and then instead of using a shade of gray use a shade of yellow. The result looks rather funky on the screen, but when you print it on a black and white printer the results will be better than if you had selected a shade of gray.

Give it a try the next time you need to print a shaded background; you may be amazed at the results.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (6558) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Suppressing Endnotes

Endnotes are a beneficial necessity for some documents. If you want to print a copy of the document without endnotes, ...

Discover More

Printing Based on Cell Contents

Would you like to have a worksheet automatically printed when a particular cell contains a specified value? You can ...

Discover More

Creating a Single Index from Multiple Documents

When dealing with large projects, it is not uncommon to break the project into multiple documents. When it comes time to ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2021 or Microsoft 365. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word Step by Step today!

More WordTips (menu)

Printing to a File

Word allows you to send your output to a file instead of to a printer. This tip shows you how.

Discover More

Printing a Circle Using PostScript

With a printer (and printer driver) that understand PostScript, you can do some nifty drawings directly to the paper, ...

Discover More

Printing a Draft of a Document

Need to print a copy of a document but you don't care if it looks as "pretty" as you want the final printout to look? You ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is four less than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.