Shapes or outlines appear/disappear when printing Grayscale or Black and White

Problem

Shapes or outlines of shapes that are invisible on the screen may appear on the printout, or vice versa.

Cause

Different settings in PowerPoint > View > Color/Grayscale and Print > Color/Grayscale may cause a discrepancy between the view on the screen and the printout. For example, shapes that are invisible on the screen in Color mode (e.g., because their fill and outline match the background) may be visible on the printout if Grayscale or Pure Black and White printing is selected. On the other hand, a shape with a fill color that is different from background may be invisible on a grayscale printout because its grayscale value and that of its background coincide.

Some PowerPoint object types have limited Grayscale and Pure Black and White support.

Solution

Review the settings in Color/Grayscale. If the printout differs, make the settings in View > Color/Grayscale and Print > Color/Grayscale match.

For details and a subset of the known limitations please see Microsoft's PowerPoint documentation. The limitations can be reproduced with plain Office charts and we filed a case with Microsoft. If your company has a Microsoft Office Support contract and you want to contact Microsoft to ask for a fix, you may refer to Microsoft case number 117110617101802.