I'm sure I can do this with CSS and NOT using tables at all, but I don't know CSS well enough to rewrite the page to have it look as I want it and I have something of a deadline. So, that said, I have a table that alternates between light gray and white lines to help clarify each "item" on a report with no table borders. When I print it, I want the light gray to show up. Is there a way (possibly a style?) that I force the background color to print?
I'm not awarding points to anyone who says don't use tables unless they provide something that *I* consider a very easy solution without tables.
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tables are not the issue here.
as already said, it's a browser setting... it's true.
unfortunately for you and for the ink manufacturers and resellers, but fortunately for everyone else.
for IE only, you might be able to force printing background colors using some ActiveX like this one: http://www.meadroid.com/sc
I disagree - it's not a security issue - your security is not at risk - your supplies are, but not your security. Again, I understand this now, the problem with this logic though is sometimes pictures are background pictures and other times they are not - it's sometimes quite difficult to tell when a background image will print and when it won't. As I said, "as I think about it, it makes sense that you can't force it."
We ran into this issue building templates for real estate agents. They wanted to be able to print the background colours all the time but the default browser setting doesn't print them. We found if we used a 1x1 gif of the colour we wanted for the background it worked well. To allow the user to change the background we used a dynamically created 1x1 pixel gif - which was actually pretty easy.
I recommend this.
<table>
<tr style="background-image:re
<tr style="background-image:bl
<tr style="background-image:re
<tr style="background-image:bl
etc.
</table>
Here's the thing - I turned on the printing options in the browsers - which for me, was sufficient... I would have preferred a way (quite possibly leos_'s way) that didn't require any browser modifications, but I also know if there were, I'd be among the people screaming loudest because companies would undoubtedly abuse it.
For ie 6.0 default printer options print background images but not background colours. Have not tested ie 7 yet. I'm not 100% sure of other browers so I'm guessing mozilla users don't print or it works for them too. You can change your printing options will over ride this method, or allow it to work on any browser - we were interested in most browsers by default.
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by: pritaeasPosted on 2006-06-29 at 12:27:14ID: 17012645
Printing the background color is a setting of your browser. I don't think you can turn it on with CSS if it is turned off in the preferences.