Excel print to PDF - shaded cells not printing

[fels40034908]

Hi all, I have an excel workbook with shaded cells and when I print to pdf they do not show. I have explored all the forums and none of the solutions work. I have tried Page Layout > Page Setup > Sheet > unchecked 'Black and White' and it doesn't work.

See example of the excel spreadsheet, and the resulting pdf. The font colours do print to pdf, it's just shaded cells.

This happens whether I do File > Print > Adobe PDF OR File > Save as Adobe PDF.

[Eric Dumas]

Hi,

Can you confirm the Operating System you are using and the version of Excel / Acrobat you have?

I 'printed' to pdf a couple of documents I have and it worked fine. Does the print preview show the colours?

Can you include screen shots to show the printing steps you are taking?

[fels40034908]

Hi

Operating System: Windows 10

Microsoft Excel for Office 365

Adobe Acrobat XI

Yes the print preview shows the colours, see attached screen shots. I get the same result when doing File > Save as Adobe PDF.

Note on this example some of the shaded colours print while others do not.

Step 1: Excel file showing coloured cells

Step 2: File > Print > Save as PDF (Print preview shows coloured cells)

Step 3: PDF does not show all shaded cells

[Eric Dumas]

That is so weird, does this happen to the same colour, if you change them around. Check

the Acrobat tab > Acrobat settings in Excel to see if any cell formatting is set to be 'ignored'

[fels40034908]

Hi Eric

I've checked there is no conditional cell formatting.

I've changed around the order of the colours and redone the process, see screen shots below.

[Eric Dumas]

It seems that it is the same colours in both attempts that are ignored.

I am not sure as why some colours would not print and others do.

Do you have to keep these colours? can you use others?

[fels40034908]

Hi Eric

I don't necessarily have to keep these colours, I could use others, but it's inconvenient. I used the excel spreadsheet as an example, but I'm actually doing reports where I use the cell colours 'Good' (green) and 'Bad' (red), to demonstrate conformance vs non-conformance. It's easy to use these colours as they are defined by Excel as good and bad and can be quickly selected, see screenshot below. Neither of these 2 colours are printing to pdf.

Any other ideas on how to fix this issue?

Thanks

[jane-e]

fels40034908  wrote

It's easy to use these colours as they are defined by Excel as good and bad and can be quickly selected, see screenshot below. Neither of these 2 colours are printing to pdf.

Hi Fels,

Good and Bad and Neutral and Comma and Currency and all the rest of those are Styles and all can be modified.

• Right-click Bad > Modify
  
• Click Format in the bottom left
  
• Go to the Fill tab and choose a different background color. I would stick with the top row, as those are the "Theme" colors. Note that pink is not one of the swatches and that may have something to do with it being non-printing.
  Uncheck Font if you don't want it to switch to that typeface and size.
  
  

• Repeat for the other styles, plus create new styles (expand the panel)
  
• Note that this will be for the current document only. To change the styles for all new Excel documents, you need to create a template and it needs to be called Book and it needs to be in the folder called xlstart. See Microsoft Help for details.
  Save cell styles to use in all new workbooks - Excel

~ Jane

[fels40034908]

Hi Jane

Thank you for the detailed instructions, much appreciated.

[jane-e]

fels40034908  wrote

I used the excel spreadsheet as an example, but I'm actually doing reports where I use the cell colours 'Good' (green) and 'Bad' (red), to demonstrate conformance vs non-conformance.  Neither of these 2 colours are printing to pdf.

I made a PDF from Excel using the styles called Good and Bad and it worked for me. I wonder if others can try it to test?

[jane-e]

Hi

What happens when you choose the Acrobat tab from the Ribbon and use PDFMaker to create the PDF from there?

Jane

[fels40034908]

Hi Jane

When I choose the Acrobat tab and use PDFmaker to create the PDF I get the exact same result as using the other method.

[Luke_Jennings]

How does the PDF look in Adobe Reader?

Do you have your Acrobat page display preference- Use overprint preview setting set to Always?

[fels40034908]

Hi Luke

My Acrobat page display preference - 'Use overprint preview setting' was NOT set to Always. It was set to 'Only PDF/X-5 compliant ones.' I have now changed it to Always, however I still get the same results when converting to pdf, it hasn't solved the issue.

In regards to Adobe Reader, I asked a colleague, who only has Adobe Reader, to open the pdf on their computer and it displays as it should, all coloured cells show up. When I open the exact same pdf in my Adobe and they are not shaded...

[fels40034908]

I have been working in Microsoft Powerpoint this afternoon and, interestingly, some shaded cells are not printing to pdf for me, which would suggest it's an Adobe issue not excel? Even more strange, I am using a particular shade of green and some of these green shaded cells print to pdf, and some don't, despite being the same colour. See screenshots below.

[Luke_Jennings]

I would have a few other people view your PDF to see if it looks normal. I suspect your PDF is fine and something is wrong with your copy of Acrobat. Is it fully updated?

If others confirm the PDF is OK, I would reset your preferences and if that doesn't work, do an uninstall and re-install.

How to reset Preference settings in Acrobat.

[fels40034908]

I checked and my copy of Adobe is fully updated, no updates available.

I reset my preferences using the method in the link, hasn't fixed the issue.

I ran Help > 'Repair Acrobat Installation' and did a restart of my computer, hasn't fixed the issue.

I guess the last step is doing an uninstall re-install but I can't find my serial number so hesitant to do that. It may be I need to update the colour preferences for Good and Bad as Jane has suggested.

[mb1280]

Different PDF programs, different results, different settings.

Here's what I've found, which I think will provide a clue,
so you can figure out what's going on with what you have.

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Excel 2010, Version: 14.0.7237.5000 (32-bit)
Page Layout / Themes / Office
Fill Color / The very top right, the first, lightest Peach

Printer: hp LaserJet 1320 PCL 5

PDF Software: Foxit Phantom Business, Version: 8.3.10.42705

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Example 1

When I {print directly from Excel to the printer}, this fill color is good to highlight things.
It's not too light - and not too dark, which saves toner

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Example 2

Ctrl+1 / Format Cells / Border / The very top left, the 2nd border down

I have one column in a Worksheet with this border, that goes down all 5 pages

Problem:
1.) When I {print directly from Excel to the printer}, my Cell Borders don't print.
2.) When I print from Foxit (explained next), the Fill Color becomes way too light

Here's the fix:

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Previously, I determined that the easiest fix to get Cell Borders, was to just print from a PDF:

File / Print / Page Setup / Page / [dot] Adjust to 99%
. . . Otherwise, it cuts off the bottom of the bottom cell, at the bottom of each page

File / Print / Page Setup / Margins / [un-check both] Center on page, horizontally / vertically
. . . How does this setting affect Cell Borders? No idea, but at some point, I noticed that it did.

File / Print / Print to Microsoft Print to PDF
. . . You will now be able to see your Cell Borders, printing from the PDF

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But, why don't I see my Fill Color now?

Foxit Phantom / File / Print / [un-check] Auto-Center
. . . It didn't look good centered

Foxit Phantom / File / Print / [un-check] Print as image . . . [I think this is the fix]
. . . I previously had this checked, to prevent garbage characters from being printed

. . . Toggle it as necessary

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[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

FYI, different PDF making software programs will create different results. Maybe not as widely different as described above, but different nonetheless.

The open source PDF standard (ISO 32000 https://www.iso.org/standard/51502.html  and https://www.pdfa.org/resource/iso-32000-1-pdf-1-7/ ) can be used by any software manufacturer.  However, as with any standard, there's room for interpretation and you'll get different results from different PDF software. And there are just plain errors and deficiencies in the programs, too.

Try various major PDF software programs to determine which will give you the results you want:

• Adobe Acrobat Standard and Pro (which uses PDF Maker plug-in/Ribbon in MS Office apps) https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat.html 
• FoxIt's various PDF making apps, such as PhantomPDF https://www.foxitsoftware.com/ 
• Nuance PDF (recently acquired by Kofax) https://www.kofax.com/Products/power-pdf 
• Microsoft's built-in PDF exporter (File / Save As, and choose PDF as the file type).

My firm tests various PDF making programs and has been involved with the development of Acrobat since the beta of Acrobat 1.0.  I'm also on the ISO standards committee for PDF.

Our recommendations today:

• For quality printing and press work, Adobe's products are far superior.
• For accessible tagged PDF per the PDF/UA-1 standard, Adobe's products are superior (but not perfect), but some Word documents export fairly well with MS's internal PDF export (File / Save As / PDF).
• For everything else, use whatever works for you.

[mb1280]

Interesting, thx!  What kind of programming bug makes it so your Cell Borders don't print as expected?  I've seen that others have this question online.

[Jim38661991s8ja]

I have the exact same issue. The problem is not PDFMaker and your colors are working properly. Just open/read the pdf documetn in a browser or have someone else open the file. The problem I discovered was the Adobe Pro XI "reader".

Solution - Change the default reader to a browser (i.e. Chrome or Edge). <R-C> "Edit with Adobe Arcabat" to make pdf edits.