XL: Identical Patterns May Be Printed Differently (211853)

SYMPTOMS

When you print a worksheet or a chart, or view a worksheet or a chart in Print Preview, patterns applied to drawing objects and AutoShapes may be printed differently from identical patterns applied to other objects, such as worksheet cells and chart series.

Specifically, the following behavior may occur:

Patterns applied to chart series are not printed at all. Instead, the chart series are printed with a solid gray fill.
Patterns applied to worksheet cells or chart series are printed more darkly and with more contrast than identical patterns applied to drawing objects and AutoShapes.

Note that these behaviors may occur even if the worksheet or chart sheet does not contain any drawing objects or AutoShapes.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur because of the way that Microsoft Excel renders objects when you print a worksheet or chart, or view a worksheet or chart in Print Preview. Drawing objects and AutoShapes use one rendering system, and all other objects use another rendering system. This may cause identical patterns that are applied to different objects to be printed differently. This behavior is especially noticeable if the colors that you use in the patterns do not contrast with each other.

WORKAROUND

Although there is no way to completely prevent these issues from occurring, you can minimize their effects by doing any of the following:

When you format objects in the worksheet or chart, use solid colors whenever possible. The issues described in this article do not occur when you use solid colors.
If you must apply a pattern to an object, use white as one of the two colors.
If possible, use two colors that contrast with each other. For example, red and yellow contrast well with each other; sky blue and aqua do not.
Before you print the worksheet or chart, use Print Preview to view the printed output. You can then reformat objects in the worksheet or chart as required. This step helps save paper and reduce unnecessary printer use.