Printing mixed b/w and color

[scot88]

I have a church with a MP C4000 that prints mixed color sets, in other words some of the pages have color, some are all b/w. They create the news letter in MS Word, I've got them using the PCL6 Universal PS driver, they have a PS card.

On the b/w prints with pictures that have either been made b/w or she goes and finds b/w pictures, it counts them as color. I know it's the picture data that is causing this, is there a way to convert the picture to b/w as far as the machine is concerned?

[sandmanmac]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

I'm a bit unclear....Can you confirm that they are either selecting "B&W" printing or that the machine is set to "B&W" as default? Colour is the default when the driver is installed.

[scot88]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

She's selected color because the first page is color and she wants the rest to be b/w. They look b/w but if there is an image that was color at some time but changed to b/w it counts as color.

[Gamut]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

She's selected color because the first page is color and she wants the rest to be b/w. They look b/w but if there is an image that was color at some time but changed to b/w it counts as color.

Only way is to separate b/w from colour and print b/w pages, then select colour and print colour pages.

[scot88]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

I was hoping there was something we could do on the software side to make the picture b/w. If you change it to grayscale in word it still sees it as color. The customer wants to be able to print it in one shot, that's what the salesman told her it would do.

[Gamut]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

I was hoping there was something we could do on the software side to make the picture b/w. If you change it to grayscale in word it still sees it as color. The customer wants to be able to print it in one shot, that's what the salesman told her it would do.

In that case just set the print driver to print b/w or machine to copy b/w as Sanmanmac suggested?

Are you are talking about default to b/w setting?

[ZOOTECH]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

The customer wants to be able to print it in one shot, that's what the salesman told her it would do.

The salesman is an A$$hole.

[scot88]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

The newsletter is a mix of both color pages and b/w pages.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

If this is like the Sharp Auto Color Function it a bit problematic to execute. I'll explain the problems, at least from the Sharp point of view:

1) My enduser was using MS Publisher to compose the documents. In Publisher black image is not black. True black is C=0, M=0, Y=0, K=100. Publisher black usually ends up being C=0, M=3, Y=0, K=100, color image, not true black.
2) JPEG images imported into Publisher bring color with them, even if they seem to be black.
3) In the Sharp driver there is an Auto Color Function which must be selected, not Color, not B & W.

The way to identify these issues is to download the ColorPic Utility. Get yourself a copy of the customers file, and have the appropriate software to open it. Open the endusers file, and ColorPic. Move the cursor around the document paying attention to the CMYK values, especially text and JPEG imports. Anything but C=0, M=0, Y=0, K=1-100 is a color image, not monochrome. We had considerably better success when the MS Publisher document was converted to PDF, i.e. CutePDF. Adobe Professional is better, yet.

You can get
ColorPic here: http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/

I hope that helps you get started.
=^..^=

[slimslob]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

Two things to try:

1. In stead of importing the images from another program (which may bring color info in) try scanning them from the c4000 set for B&W.
2. Try printing to the document server. First the color first page only, then the rest of the document as B&W. Reassemble them through the document server.

[ledoux]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

Haven't looked at a Savin print driver in awhile but I had a Sharp that was having a similar issue at a church. There were a couple of settings in the driver for I believe print grays with black, text with black and vector with black. It's been awhile so I don't remember which one I changed.

They were having several issues and this was only one. Another part of the problem is they had sepia tone pictures in the doc that the believed to be B&W.

[Moza]

There is no auto colour option with Ricoh print drivers. If you select colour it will treat the whole document as colour irrespective of whether it contains black and white images.

The only option is to print the pages you want in colour separately

[scot88]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

The PCL6 Universal PS (or non PS) both count right, it's only when you have a picture on the page that has color data embedded, even if it looks b/w, that it counts wrong per the customer. If you have one page with a color picture and another that is just b/w text, or even a true b/w picture as page 2, the print driver on color, you will get 1 color and 1 b/w on the counters.

I'm thinking about having her print the pictures and then scan them as b/w, then use them as needed, or print the pages as she wants them then copy it on auto color. The solution will be what ever is the least amount of work for her.

[teebee1234]

Re: Printing mixed b/w and color

There is no auto colour option with Ricoh print drivers. If you select colour it will treat the whole document as colour irrespective of whether it contains black and white images.

The only option is to print the pages you want in colour separately

Not true, the problem is the picture that is embedded is grayscale. The Universal PCL driver and the older RPCS driver have 'auto color sensing'. Just make sure 'gray reproduction' in the Print Quality setting is set to "black". Also be sure the Universal Driver you use has the particular mfp in its database.

What Blackcat says is right on, that utility will confirm where the color is.

[Moza]

There is no auto colour option with Ricoh print drivers. If you select colour it will treat the whole document as colour irrespective of whether it contains black and white images.

The only option is to print the pages you want in colour separately

Not true, the problem is the picture that is embedded is grayscale. The Universal PCL driver and the older RPCS driver have 'auto color sensing'. Just make sure 'gray reproduction' in the Print Quality setting is set to "black". Also be sure the Universal Driver you use has the particular mfp in its database.

What Blackcat says is right on, that utility will confirm where the color is.

With RPCS no longer being supported its not something I see very often & dont really use universal drivers either as most of my customers dont like them but will definitely have a look at that