Printing in white

**Norm201** · 2011-03-19 12:38

Does anybody know of a way to print white characters just using an ordinary printer? I have a dark blue paper that I need to print on and black or any other color other than white just won't show up.

**jscher2000** · 2011-03-19 15:08

I don't know whether color printers (inkjet or laser) can mix colors to get white. Is there such a thing as "white toner"?

**BATcher** · 2011-03-19 15:40

Has anyone come across an inkjet cartridge which contains bleach?

**BillSheets** · 2011-03-19 18:10

I don't think that is something you can really do. If you are referring to light, then using "all" colors in the visible spectrum you get white. HOWEVER, with respect to using paints or in this case inks, mixing ALL colors produces black. So, even though you can type the font in white in word, it would NOT print white, since for ink if you will it is the absense of ink and since you have paper that is blue it wouldn't print.
Does that make sense ?

**BillSheets** · 2011-03-19 18:11

One question, what is the brand and model of your printer ?

**BillSheets** · 2011-03-19 18:14

believe it or not I ACTUALLY DID find a site that sells WHITE INK cartridges. brace yourself though for the pricing because depending on the printer, it listed some cartridges that were like $620 but you might can find what you need here
http://shopping.yahoo.com/search?p=w...nk%20cartridge

**Norm201** · 2011-03-19 21:34

My printer is just a run of the mill Canon MP250.

Thanks for the site but too rich for my blood. (ink)

**BATcher** · 2011-03-20 02:49

Here's a more sensible answer, filched from another website:

Inkjet printer inks are dye-based, and that's the reason.

Perhaps this will help explain things. You know those little boxes of food colouring you can buy in the supermarket - the ones that have four little bottles of colour - red, blue, yellow and green. Within reason you can combine these to turn white icing into most colours. Use nothing and the icing is still white or use everything and the icing will go a black-brown colour. Use a couple of drops of red and blue and you'll get purple.

But if you start with black icing, there's nothing you can add that will make it anything but black.

It's the same with your inkjet printer - because white is obtained by not having any ink print on the white paper. But of course that only works when the paper is white. Naturally you'll get different results on all colours of paper, decreasing as the paper gets darker in colour. Print blue on yellow paper and you should get green printing.

The only way to print in white is to do what commercial printers do - use opaque inks and include a white ink in the process. And as far as I know there's no commercial ink that will do that with an inkjet printer.

I can hear lots of you muttering "Rubbish. Of course you can print light colours on dark paper." Well all I can say is, have fun experimenting, but you won't be able to do it.
Paul Zucker

**jesymington** · 2011-03-24 07:46

Insted of using blue paper use white paper and with your software make the background blue. That way you will get white print on a blue background. It's gonna take some ink but it's way less that $620 for white.

**Word Help** · 2011-03-24 10:31

Since you said that black does not show very well on the blue paper, try the following:-
Change to a black shading in the text area and then change font colour to white.

**Word Help** · 2011-03-24 10:36

You could also test the following, - change the shading to a light grey background and use BOLd white text to have it show better.

**Erniek** · 2011-03-24 11:19

Have you thought about printing in a very pale yellow? This will show up as OFF-white on dark paper.

**gumintwork** · 2011-03-24 16:36

I would try a very light yellow or very light gray.

**jgstanley** · 2011-03-25 10:48

Why don't you visit a commercial printer (i.e. a local print shop)? They already have the resources to print light colors on dark paper.

Standard Ink Jet and Laser printers are additive, not subtractive. This means they can go from light to dark (e.g. white paper with dark blue ink), but not dark to light.

People that gave silly responses to this, like "Try light yellow" or "print in bold" just don't understand.

**gumintwork** · 2011-03-25 11:33

Good clarification from jgstanley. Hadn't thought it through, so had to experiment. HP Deskjet with all options set to heaviest ink deposit. Word doc on the darkest blue paper I have (not as dark as navy, admittedly, and washed out by cell cam flash. The bottom one is almost invisible on a white background (on screen).
text-darkpaper.JPG

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