printing negative

[dennis999]

Hello
i am new here and struggling with adobe illustrator
i am trying to print a negative image of monochrome copy to my office laser printer
i can't seem to find a way to do that
is it possible ?
or is it possible to invert the colors on screen and print that ?

the only way i have found is to change the font to white and drop a black rectangle on top of it, but that is pretty messy
BTW, there are some mono half tones in there too
TIA for any help

 

[RegistrationMark]

Choose separations, then select "negative" from the output section of Print dialog.
Mark

 

[dennis999]

yeah i tried that but it seems to ignore it and keeps coming out positive

 

[jmgalvin]

Usually the KISS principle works best so throwing in a black box and changing text to white will be the least problematical.

If you do want to print negative, remeber that you have to add a white box (not papet) to the background so that AI can find the white to flip.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[dennis999]

thanks jmgalvin
maybe that was the issue with not printing neg (no white box)
but what is 'papet' ?

 

[jmgalvin]

The normal background on an AI doc appears to be white (if you don't show the transparency grid). It's actually not white. It's transparent but, since most printing is on white stock, looks white. Adobe indesign actually refers to that as Paper in the swatches palette.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[dennis999]

well i finally got it !
the printer would not expose the negative option in 'output' becuase it was not a postscript printer (although it does support postscript)
after a LOT of futzing around with HP's lousy software i finally figured out how to get a second 'printer' installed with their postscript driver and now it can print negative if i point to that 'printer'