Printing Background colors

[J. B. Moreno]

I read the faq, and it mentions that IE 4 on windows requires setting a
printing option to allow background colors to be printed.

Things change, life goes on, other browsers come into existence....

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to all
pages printed?

Thanks,

--
J.B.Moreno

[Els]

J. B. Moreno wrote:

I read the faq, and it mentions that IE 4 on windows requires setting a
printing option to allow background colors to be printed.

Things change, life goes on, other browsers come into existence....

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to all
pages printed?

Fortunately not. I don't want you to have any power over how much
(coloured) ink I have to pay for :-)

NB: ask on Usenet, get reply on Usenet. Don't set email to poster
headers.

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
Now playing: The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again

[J. B. Moreno]

Els <el*********@ti scali.nl> wrote:

J. B. Moreno wrote: -snip-

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to
all pages printed?

Fortunately not. I don't want you to have any power over how much
(coloured) ink I have to pay for :-)

Well, the intended printer(s) would be laser printers, but if it can't be
done, it doesn't matter.

Thanks, guess instructions will be in order...
NB: ask on Usenet, get reply on Usenet. Don't set email to poster
headers.

I used the Mail-Copies-To header, which as it's name suggest, requests a
mail COPY of the usenet post be sent to me. I'm not trying to move the
discussion off of usenet or anything else like that -- this isn't a drive
by post, and while I don't read the group a lot, I am subscribed to it.

--
J.B.Moreno

[Harlan Messinger]

J. B. Moreno wrote:

Els <el*********@ti scali.nl> wrote:

J. B. Moreno wrote:

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to
all pages printed?

Fortunately not. I don't want you to have any power over how much
(coloured) ink I have to pay for :-)

Well, the intended printer(s) would be laser printers, but if it can't be
done, it doesn't matter.

You think laser printers don't use ink (or toner or something)?!

[C A Upsdell]

J. B. Moreno wrote:

I read the faq, and it mentions that IE 4 on windows requires setting a
printing option to allow background colors to be printed.

Things change, life goes on, other browsers come into existence....

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to all
pages printed?

No. But there is a way to specify different CSS for printing, so you
can avoid many problems. E.g., in one site I have:

@media print
{ a, a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover { color:#000; }
body, html { margin:0; padding:0; }
html { background-color:#fff; background-image:none; }
}

[J. B. Moreno]

Harlan Messinger <hm************ *******@comcast .net> wrote:

J. B. Moreno wrote:

Els <el*********@ti scali.nl> wrote: -snip-

Fortunately not. I don't want you to have any power over how much
(coloured) ink I have to pay for :-)

Well, the intended printer(s) would be laser printers, but if it can't
be done, it doesn't matter.

You think laser printers don't use ink (or toner or something)?!

Except for thermal printers, they all use SOMETHING (and they use
electricity). But color ink is a lot more expensive than toner on a
standard laser printer (don't know about color laser printers, but at a
guess, I'd say more than them too).

Besides that -- I know how to fake it, so if the point was to use up your
expensive ink, it could be done (the foreground color prints, so there you
are), I was just looking for something that wouldn't be more trouble than
it's worth.

--
J.B.Moreno

[J. B. Moreno]

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

J. B. Moreno wrote:

I read the faq, and it mentions that IE 4 on windows requires setting a
printing option to allow background colors to be printed.

Things change, life goes on, other browsers come into existence....

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to
all pages printed?

No. But there is a way to specify different CSS for printing, so you
can avoid many problems. E.g., in one site I have:

@media print
{ a, a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover { color:#000; }
body, html { margin:0; padding:0; }
html { background-color:#fff; background-image:none; }
}

I was hoping for something along those lines, but with background-color
being respected -- your example implies that it is respected (your setting
the background-color to white) under those circumstances, but I'd guess
that's a false hope based upon the other comments.

--
J.B.Moreno

[C A Upsdell]

J. B. Moreno wrote:

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

J. B. Moreno wrote:

I read the faq, and it mentions that IE 4 on windows requires setting a
printing option to allow background colors to be printed.

Things change, life goes on, other browsers come into existence....

So, is there a way in CSS to say "Yeah, print these background colors",
without the user having to turn on an option that will then apply to
all pages printed?

No. But there is a way to specify different CSS for printing, so you
can avoid many problems. E.g., in one site I have:

@media print
{ a, a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover { color:#000; }
body, html { margin:0; padding:0; }
html { background-color:#fff; background-image:none; }
}

I was hoping for something along those lines, but with background-color
being respected -- your example implies that it is respected (your setting
the background-color to white) under those circumstances, but I'd guess
that's a false hope based upon the other comments.

Hmmm, actually I set the background colour to white, assuming the paper
is white, so that Print Preview gives me a reasonable representation of
what will be printed, and so that the background will be white if the
user's browser is configured to print backgrounds.

Of course, one of my motives for specifying CSS for printing is to
prevent ink/toner from being wasted in printing unnecessary backgrounds.

BTW, if you plan to tell the user how to enable background printing, one
of my FAQs may help you: http://www.upsdell.com/site/faq.htm#print

[Sander Tekelenburg]

In article <20************ *******@newsrea der.com>,
J. B. Moreno <pl***@newsread ers.com> wrote:

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:
[...]

@media print

[...]
I was hoping for something along those lines, but with background-color
being respected -- your example implies that it is respected (your setting
the background-color to white) under those circumstances, but I'd guess
that's a false hope based upon the other comments.

The essential thing is to realise that on the 'net the end user is
always in control, not the author. As an author you can make suggestions
as to how you think your content would best be presented, but no more.
You have zero control. The user has all control. (Whether a given user
is aware of that is a different issue.)

It's no different from Usenet: I'm typing this in my preferred
newsclient, with my preferred font, fontsize and colours. You'll read it
in your preferred newsclient, with your preferred font, fontsize,
colours, etc.

--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/%7Etekelenb/>

[J. B. Moreno]

te******@eurone t.nl wrote:

In article <20************ *******@newsrea der.com>,
J. B. Moreno <pl***@newsread ers.com> wrote:

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

[...]

@media print

[...]

I was hoping for something along those lines, but with background-color
being respected -- your example implies that it is respected (your
setting the background-color to white) under those circumstances, but
I'd guess that's a false hope based upon the other comments.

The essential thing is to realise that on the 'net the end user is
always in control, not the author. As an author you can make suggestions
as to how you think your content would best be presented, but no more.
You have zero control. The user has all control. (Whether a given user
is aware of that is a different issue.)

As an author, it's my job to at least try to present my stuff in what I
think will be the most effective manner: that does the job with the least
effort and maximum rewards.

Letting the reader override what I do is fine, not allowing me to do it in
the first place is another matter entirely.

And while it makes sense to automatically block background colors and
images from printing where the media type is "all" or "screen", it doesn't
make sense to automatically block them when the media type is "print".

Creating a good UI to present the choices to the user, may be more work
than anyone wants to do, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a
difference between the two situations.

In fact, by NOT acknowledging the difference, the most likely result is
that the author will take control away from the user -- for instance, I'll
probably use foreground colors, absolute positioning, and Z-index to get
the result I want, and the user won't be able to turn it off (in this
context, that doesn't really matter, as the user wouldn't really have a
choice anyway, but in general, it's a bad thing, and it's a PITA for me).

--
J.B.Moreno