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A Black and White Printing Solution

Do you print presentations in Black and White? I do. And when I do, I generally want the text (and possibly a couple of graphics) to show on the paper, but not every slide element. This is especially true in PPT 2002 and 2003, where you can't print the slide animations. One solution is Shyam's Capture Show Add-in. But I found that more often what I wanted to do was to easily make some objects on the slide not show in greyscale mode.

So, I did what any good PowerPoint MVP would do - I wrote a tool. First couple of rounds of it were pretty ugly and simplistic. But, with the help of Steve Rindsberg and Bruce Jacobs, I now have a tool good enough to share with you.

There are three main macros for the add-in. They are

• SetCurrentObjectToNotPrintGrey
• SetCurrentObjectToPrintGrey
• ToggleCurrentObject

To use the macros, you select the object or objects on your slide that you want to hide or show on your printout. Then, you run the code associated with the desired setting.

Here is the code for the three routines:

Sub SetCurrentObjectToNotPrintGrey()
'
' Macro created 8/26/2004 by Kathryn Jacobs
'

' Don't need to change the display, just the shape setting
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoTrue

Dim x As Long

' needs error trapping ... what if there's no selection?
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
    ' Deal with every shape in the selection
    For x = 1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Count
        ' Save original bw setting then restore it on second click
        With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(x)
                .BlackWhiteMode = msoBlackWhiteDontShow
        End With
    Next x
    
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoFalse
NormalExit:
    Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
    MsgBox ("Please choose a shape or shapes and try again.")
    Resume NormalExit

End Sub
Sub ToggleCurrentObject()
'
' Macro created 8/26/2004 by Kathryn Jacobs
'

' Don't need to change the display, just the shape setting
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoTrue

Dim x As Long

' needs error trapping ... what if there's no selection?
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
    ' Deal with every shape in the selection
    For x = 1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Count
        ' Save original bw setting then restore it on second click
        With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(x)
             If .BlackWhiteMode = msoBlackWhiteDontShow Then
                .BlackWhiteMode = msoBlackWhiteAutomatic
            Else
                .BlackWhiteMode = msoBlackWhiteDontShow
            End If
        End With
    Next x
    
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoFalse
NormalExit:
    Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
    MsgBox ("Please choose a shape or shapes and try again.")
    Resume NormalExit

End Sub
Sub SetCurrentObjectToPrintGrey()
'
' Macro created 8/26/2004 by Kathryn Jacobs
'

' Don't need to change the display, just the shape setting
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoTrue

Dim x As Long

' needs error trapping ... what if there's no selection?
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
    ' Deal with every shape in the selection
    For x = 1 To ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Count
        ' Save original bw setting then restore it on second click
        With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(x)
                .BlackWhiteMode = msoBlackWhiteAutomatic
        End With
    Next x
    
'    ActiveWindow.BlackAndWhite = msoFalse
NormalExit:
    Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
    MsgBox ("Please choose a shape or shapes and try again.")
    Resume NormalExit

End Sub

Now, this code only creates your macros. If you want to create a toolbar or an add-in, you are going to need to check out the PPT FAQ entry Create an ADD-IN with TOOLBARS that run macros. Or, you can download this Zip file, which contains both a PPT version and a PPA version of the code. To use it, un-zip the files and place the PPA in the Add-ins folder for your login. The path for that directory is: "C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxxx\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns", where xxxxxx is your login. Once you have saved the add-in, open PowerPoint and go to Tools--> Add-ins, and install the add-in.

The add-in creates this toolbar:

Have fun using and adapting this tool. Who knows, if there is enough interest, I may even expand it to the other types of printing as well.