Why can't WordPerfect distinguish black from color when printing in the color mode?

Let me first clarify your question by asking you these two questions:-

If you have a document which consists of all black text, it prints out ok?

If you replace the word "the" in the text to one that uses a red colour, it prints using colours, and uses CMY to produce Black throughout the document?

The ultimate test here is to direct the printer driver that you are using to print to a file, and then examine the resulting file to see how the driver deals with the output.  Strip the text down to "the quick brown fox" and run both the above through to a different file.

If this is a postscript output you are producing then pick another postscript printer driver (not Xerox), now run the test again printing to two different files again.

Please let us know the results to these tests.  Doing the above test will pretty well isolate whereabouts the problem is.

For the record: As you say, Corel own WordPerfect.  However the history of WordPerfect is that it was owned first by the WordPerfect Corporation, then by Novell (Microsoft's new best pals), so there is unlikely to be much in the WordPerfect product that uses Corel's coding techniques.

In the Print, Advanced tab of WordPerfect, do you have an option "Print Text as Graphics"?  Is this option ticked?  If it is, untick it and try again.

Question 1: No, if I have an all black document and the print mode is color, it prints in color.  If this is the case, I don't have a problem chosing black as the output mode.  The problem is when I have a mixed document and print multiple copies I have to print the black and color copies separately and then collate them by hand.  The all-black pages look crisp and the mixed pages have fuzzy black print because it's in "color."

Question 2: Yes.

When I print to a file, how do I tell how the driver dealt with the output?

How do I use a different printer driver than the one for the actual printer?

No, that option is not chosen.

Question 2: Does the output look crisp, or fuzzy?

To choose a different printer go into Control Panel, Printers, Add Printer, but don't get it to detect it (there's a tick box for that)...  In fact, don't worry about that, I've done that for you, and here are the results of the test using a Microsoft Postscript driver.

These are the differences.  There is a hell of a lot of preliminaries with Postscript, but towards the end of the file you will see The quick brown fox shown in text which is where the actual printing of the page takes place:-

Black only:-

F /F0 0 /256 T /Times-Roman mF
/F0S32 F0 [50 0 0 -50 0 0 ] mFS
F0S32 Ji
267 280 M (The quick brown fox)[31 24 22 13 25 25 12 22 25 13 24 17 26 36 24 13 15 26  0]xS
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer



Red and black:-

F /F0 0 /256 T /Times-Roman mF
/F0S32 F0 [50 0 0 -50 0 0 ] mFS
F0S32 Ji
267 280 M (The)[31 24  0]xS
0 0 scol 344 280 M ( quick brown fox)[13 25 25 12 22 25 13 24 17 26 36 24 13 15 26  0]xS
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer


WordPerfect in my view is telling the printer to print "The" in red, with no other difference.  Therefore if the answer to Q2 is "fuzzy" I would say the problem lies with either Xerox's driver, or with Xerox's interpretation of the PostScript output.  Examining the output from the driver will tell us which it is.

Why do you have to print the copies separately?  If you are doing this, there is an option for printing out the text only (on the Advanced tab again).  

The Xerox supports Postscript and PCL5c:  Have you tried both emulations to see if there is a difference?

When I have a document that is, say, 50 pages and maybe 13 of them are in color with either text or graphics or photos, I have to print the pages with color on them separately (in color mode) than the ones that are all black (in black & white mode) in order to keep from registering on the meter 50 color pages.  If I need 10 copies of this document, those falsely registered counts add up, but it's also a pain to collate them.  This is not a cheap printer ($15K), I shouldn't be in the dark ages when printing large documents, that is what is so frustrating.

Question 2: the black text is fuzzy (color).


All black in color mode

%%IncludeResource: font Helvetica
F /F0 0 /256 T /Helvetica mF
/F0S64 F0 [100 0 0 -100 0 0 ] mFS
F0S64 Ji
500 593 M (The quick brown fox)[62 56 56 28 55 56 22 50 50 28 56 33 56 71 56 28 29 56  0]xS
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer

Red The rest black:

%%IncludeResource: font Helvetica
F /F0 0 /256 T /Helvetica mF
/F0S64 F0 [100 0 0 -100 0 0 ] mFS
F0S64 Ji
500 593 M (The )[62 56 56  0]xS
0.457 0.48 0.465 0.996 3 scol 702 593 M (quick brown fox)[55 56 22 50 50 28 56 33 56 71 56 28 29 56  0]xS
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer

Looks like the same results as you.

I only have the PS printer driver installed.

All black text in black & white mode:

%%IncludeResource: font Helvetica
F /F0 0 /256 T /Helvetica mF
/F0S64 F0 [100 0 0 -100 0 0 ] mFS
F0S64 Ji
500 593 M (The quick brown fox)[62 56 56 28 55 56 22 50 50 28 56 33 56 71 56 28 29 56  0]xS
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer

AAHHH, the penny's finally dropped regarding the costing thing.  (It's Sunday, that's my excuse).

It looks to me as if the Xerox switches itself into a different mode when processing colour documents.  Way to prove this is to take those PRN documents you have produced and give them to someone who has a colour postscript printer and see if the results are the same as from the Xerox.  

Try using PCL emulation instead, see if that gives the same print quality.

Are you using 600x600, or 1200x1200?

Well, I don't see where to choose PCL emulation and I don't see where to get resolution.  I believe it's 600x600 though.

The spec sheet for the printer talks about PCL - there must be a PCL driver on the Xerox website.  

Changing to 1200x1200 might get rid of the problem, need to look at the ramifications on the costing side however.  That would be selected in the Windows printer control panel, and going into the printer Properties, Quality.  The speed of the printer would be slower, but somehow I suspect it will still be faster than you collating manually!

In CorelDraw (which works)

All black:

%%Page: 1 1
%%ViewingOrientation: 0 1 1 0
%LogicalPage: 1
%%BeginPageSetup
@sv
@sm
userdict begin
end
@sv
%%EndPageSetup
@rax 98.71285 614.46416 313.30970 636.70450 @E
[0.00028346 0.00000000 0.00000000 0.00028346 98.71284678 619.23229231] @tm
 0 O 0 @g
[ 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 null ] set_fill_color
e
/_R1284667-ArialMT 84667.00000 z
0 0 (The quick brown fox) @t
T
%%PageTrailer
@rs
@rs
%EndScript
%%Trailer
@EndSysCorelDict
end
%%DocumentProcessColors: Black
%%DocumentSuppliedResources: procset wCorel3Dict 3.0 0
%%+ font ArialMT

Red and black:

%%Page: 1 1
%%ViewingOrientation: 0 1 1 0
%LogicalPage: 1
%%BeginPageSetup
@sv
@sm
userdict begin
end
@sv
%%EndPageSetup
@rax 98.71285 614.46416 313.30970 636.70450 @E
[0.00028346 0.00000000 0.00000000 0.00028346 98.71284678 619.23229231] @tm
 0 O 0 @g
[ 1.00 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 null ] set_fill_color
e
/_R1284667-ArialMT 84667.00000 z
0 0 (The) @t
T
@rax 98.71285 614.46416 313.30970 636.70450 @E
[0.00028346 0.00000000 0.00000000 0.00028346 98.71284678 619.23229231] @tm
 0 O 0 @g
[ 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 null ] set_fill_color
e
/_R1284667-ArialMT 84667.00000 z
169418 0 (quick brown fox) @t
T
%%PageTrailer
@rs
@rs
%EndScript
%%Trailer
@EndSysCorelDict
end
%%DocumentProcessColors: Magenta Yellow Black
%%DocumentSuppliedResources: procset wCorel3Dict 3.0 0
%%+ font ArialMT

In Microsoft Word (which also works)

All black:

%%IncludeResource: font Times-Roman
F /F0 0 /256 T /Times-Roman mF
/F0S64 F0 [100 0 0 -100 0 0 ] mFS
F0S64 Ji
650 590 M (The quick brown fox)[61 50 44 25 50 50 28 44 50 25 50 33 50 72 50 26 33 50  0]xS
1492 590 M ( )S
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer

Red and black:

%%IncludeResource: font Times-Roman
F /F0 0 /256 T /Times-Roman mF
/F0S64 F0 [100 0 0 -100 0 0 ] mFS
F0S64 Ji
650 590 M (The)[61 50  0]xS
0.457 0.48 0.465 0.996 3 scol 805 590 M ( quick brown fox)[25 50 50 28 44 50 25 50 33 50 72 50 26 33 50  0]xS
1492 590 M ( )S
LH
(%%[Page: 1]%%) =
%%PageTrailer

Max resolution is 600 dpi.

I didn't know if installing the PCL driver would over-write the PS driver (which I prefer because I use CMYK color instead of RGB).

The main difference I can see with the Microsoft Word output is the use of Times New Roman rather than Helvetica.  There must be a setting earlier in the output which is different...  I understand what you are saying though, if Word can do it, why can't WordPerfect?  (The way that Corel Draw prints out is different, using more sophisticated description techniques).  The only other test I can think of is to install an older Postscript driver, and try printing out to the Xerox using that.  (I chose an Oki driver for the test I did above).

Adding a new printer without (I think) the PS capabilities solved the problem in WordPerfect.  I now just have to remember to use the right printer.  Can't everyone just talk the same language?  Thanks very much, I know how difficult it is to talk via type and troubleshoot without being on site.  Too much to remember!

Thanks again!

If you save the document having printed it using the PCL driver, then it will remember the printer setting (if it doesn't there's an option you should change in WordPerfect settings, format documents for Default Printer).

Thanks for the points.

Cheaper printing, less collating.  Cool!