# Office 2007 color printing issues



## curiousgc (Jun 23, 2008)

Hi. I'm having a problem printing Office documents in color on a color printer. I noticed it first with Excel. I have an Excel document that was created in Excel 2003, I now have Excel 2007 and when I try to print in color it prints black and white. Even the print preview is showing black and white. All printing options are set to color (black and white check box is not checked in Page Setup). I opened up a word document and tried to print it in color, print preview in Word shows color but doesn't print in color. Any ideas on what may be going on or how I can fix this problem? Thanks in advance!!


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## CTSNKY (Aug 7, 2004)

Have to ask......is there a color cartridge in the machine? Are you able to print in color using other applications to this printer?


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## curiousgc (Jun 23, 2008)

Hey thanks, yes it is a color printer that we use all the time. It will not print any office documents in color. It will print other things in color though (webpages...etc.). This is a new computer that was recently hooked up to the network.


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## CTSNKY (Aug 7, 2004)

Sorry, should have also asked what is the specific make/model for the printer in question?


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## curiousgc (Jun 23, 2008)

It's a Phaser 6250DP.


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## CTSNKY (Aug 7, 2004)

Sorry, but I could not locate anything specific to your issue. For a general approach, try uninstalling and reinstalling the printer. Dowload the most recent driver from the Xerox web site for the reinstall.

Good luck.....


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## curiousgc (Jun 23, 2008)

Ok, thanks for you help!


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## KLGIT (Sep 16, 2008)

I've been seeing the same issue here. It is not a printer related issue. 
All other applications can print just fine in colour.
This seems to be some sort of bug or configuration issue with Office 2007.
Office has always seemed to do it's own thing with regards to interacting with the OS, particularly printing. It now seems to have finally caught up to Microsoft with regards to ignoring their own rules and API's.

Anyway, if anyone has a solution on this.....I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, if I figure it out I'll post here.

To recap, the issue is that you can have a document, in our case a spreadsheet, whith colour in it. For example, negative dollar amounts in red and other cells with colour coded backgrounds. Now, when you try and print or print preview the document, everything is converted to black and white only. This happens on screen during the print preview, and on the print out. 
To repeat, the printer, it's settings and it's drivers are not the issue. The printer prints colour fine from other applications.
All of the relevant document settings that I can think of have been checked. It's not in draft mode. The print in black and white option is not selected, and the printer is set to colour output in the print properties dialogue.


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## KLGIT (Sep 16, 2008)

OK, update....

This is caused by a Microsoft Windows update. However, I don't know which one yet.

IF you have installed SP3, you will have this issue and removing SP3 does fix it, so obviously it's one of the patches that's been rolled up into SP3. However, I have some SP2 systems with the problem as well. I have no real desire to try and cross reference all the installed patches on an affected machine with a list of SP3 roll ups, but maybe this info will get someone with more time on their hands (or more desperate) a place to start.


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## KLGIT (Sep 16, 2008)

OK, so apparently I'm going to have to solve this myself.
Here's my progress so far. I listed all the installed patches on an affected PC that _doesn't_ include SP3. I then compared that list to patches included in SP3 and their descriptions.
Here is my hotfix candidate list so far. I just picked ones that were in SP3 and on the affected PC that had a description that sounded like it might plausibly cause the colour printing issue with the Xerox systems and MS Office.

KB896423 - MS05-043: Vulnerability in Print Spooler service could allow remote code execution

KB896424 - Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-053: Vulnerabilities in graphics rendering engine could allow code execution

*KB901214 - MS05-036: Vulnerability in Microsoft Color Management Module could allow remote code execution**

KB904706 - MS05-050: Vulnerability in DirectShow could allow remote code execution

KB912919 - MS06-001: Vulnerability in graphics rendering engine could allow remote code execution

This list is incomplete and so far only includes candidates from the first page (of 3) of fixes on the affected PC.

** So far this is my most likely suspect.* I'll try removing it on the affected PC and see if that fixes the problem.

That's it for now. Will update as I get more info.


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## KLGIT (Sep 16, 2008)

*Re: Office 2007 color printing issues **SOLVED***

Instead of wading through Microsoft's mess, I contacted Xerox support and their engineering team hooked me up with a new driver that fixed the problem completely.

I won't bother posting the driver because:

- You'll need one for your specific Xerox colour printer anyway, not just our model.
- I'm sure Xerox will be putting this fix into their mainstream public driver releases soon anyway.

I have to say, good job Xerox for fixing this issue even though it was caused by a Microsoft patch. Their engineering people were great in working with me to resolve the issue. 

Anyway, if you are having this issue, update your printer drivers from the Xerox website to the latest version. If this doesn't do it (ie the fix hasn't hit the mainstream driver releases yet) then call Xerox support and tell them you are having a colour printing issue from Office applications and heard there was a SPAR driver that fixes it.

For them to reference, the driver they gave me for our WorkCentre Pro C3545 was named "WC2128_2636_3545_W2kx_XP_Vista_32_bit_PS_5_79_10.zip"

*I am also including the doc file that they sent me that DOES contain a description of the driver and links to download various versions of it.*

Hope this helps someone else.


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