Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

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lpronfire
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Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by lpronfire »

Powerpoint has a long-standing issue, dating back at least ten years, where trying to print Pure Black and White rather than the default Colour doesn't work. To reproduce:

Print any PPT to the PDF Xchange printer driver
Select "Pure Black and White" as the print option

When you click Print, it'll reset itself to Greyscale, and the output will be printed greyscale, i.e. with every slide a wash of grey if they were originally coloured. There is a registry key fix IgnoreDevModeColor but that doesn't work. According to MS tech forums the problem is that the printer driver is mis-representing some capability, which causes Powerpoint to automatically switch back to Greyscale when Pure Black and White is selected.

I've checked it against the Adobe PDF driver, the built-in Windows Print to PDF, and a third-party PDF driver and they don't have this problem. It would be good if the PDF Xchange driver could be updated to avoid this problem, since it currently makes printed black-and-white PDFs from Powerpoint impossible.
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello lpronfire,

Are you using the File -> Print option in PowerPoint?
Why not try the PDF XChange Add-in - with the correct settings in the Graphics section set so that all colours are converted to monochrome - and you would be able to create your PDF file directly as true B&W.

Kind regards,
Stefan
lpronfire
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by lpronfire »

Thanks, but I'm just using the free print driver, it's for community college teaching. Also, does the add-in give you the level of control that print to PDF does? I need to print handouts, multiple slides per page, which built-in converters usually don't allow.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, lpronfire

To my knowledge, the normal print dialog in PPT does not allow you to specify printing multiple instances of each slide.
Beyond that, the conversion plugin actually goves more control and abilities (such as retaining web links), than printing to PDF would, however as the conversion addin does only convert to PDF (which is a digital format) it does not offer a function to duplicate pages.

Instead the Editor allows you to do this when printing to a physical printer, simply specify the pages you wish duplicates of multiple times:
image.png
Or you can manually duplicate the pages beforehand in our Editor. This is done by copying Ctrl+C and pasting Ctrl+V the page in the Thumbnails pane Ctrl+T.

In any situation, there are usually better ways to print multiple copies of something for a printout when sending the job to a physical printer, there is no need to do so while the file remains in the digital format, as that simply increases the file size needlessly.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
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Support@pdf-xchange.com
lpronfire
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by lpronfire »

Ah, I didn't mean that, I meant this:
image1.png
image1.png (8.86 KiB) Viewed 3138 times
So printing the slides six to a page for use as handouts. Only the virtual printers allow this, standard export-to-PDF functionality never seems to support this level of customisation.
Willy Van Nuffel
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Hello,

The required modification in Windows Registry to allow "Pure Black and White" printing in Microsoft PowerPoint 2016, in combination with PDF-XChange Lite Printer FREE version 8.0.341, seems to work correctly.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\PowerPoint]
"IgnoreDevModeColor"=dword:00000001

Changing the value of the parameter "IgnoreDevModeColor" from "1" to "0" makes that B&W printing does not work anymore after a restart of PowerPoint. This is a proof to me that the proposed modification should cure the problem.

Are you sure to try with the most recent version of PDF-Change Lite Printer FREE ?
- https://www.pdf-xchange.com/product/pdf-xchange-lite

Additional info:
16.0 = PowerPoint 2016
15.0 = PowerPoint 2013
14.0 = PowerPoint 2010

Regards.
lpronfire
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by lpronfire »

See my initial post, the IgnoreDevModeColor registry setting doesn't fix the problem, and others have reported this as well. This is for PPT 2016 under Windows 10.
Willy Van Nuffel
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Myself, I have done the test with PowerPoint 2016 (32 bit) running below Windows 10 (also 32 bit) and PDF-XChange Lite FREE printer (32 bit). I do not know if that should make a difference in 64 bit environment.

If you would like to post an example PPT or PPTX, I am prepared to give it a try.

Maybe the people of Tracker Software Support can give us a definitive Yes or a No to your question.

Regards.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, All
lpronfire wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 7:50 am So printing the slides six to a page for use as handouts. Only the virtual printers allow this, standard export-to-PDF functionality never seems to support this level of customisation.
My apologies for misunderstanding. The Standard printer conversion addin actually does offer extensive levels of customization when converting, much like we do when printing. You can find these settings, by clicking on the "Edit settings" button in Powerpoint on our PDF-XChange tab:
image.png
We also allow conversion of graphics into grayscale or Black&White color modes, though basic text and the like will not be converted as well. You can find these options in the "Graphics" section of the settings. This function is also availabel when printing normally to the Standard printer, and could be considered our "way to combat" that issue. Unfortunately, neither of these options are available in the Lite priner.

I hope this helps!
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com
Support@pdf-xchange.com
lpronfire
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Re: Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by lpronfire »

Thanks, I'll give that a go!
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Print driver triggers Powerpoint bug

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

:)
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our Web site domain and email address has changed as of 26/10/2023.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com
Support@pdf-xchange.com
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