Print problems with Numbers

Why are tables filling the cells with colors/shading when I print even though they are showing blank on the screen? I have no settings or rules for highlighting or fill.

Earlier displays & monitors

Posted on Apr 28, 2023 8:41 AM

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Posted on May 5, 2023 1:06 PM

It is amazing how many printing problems get posted here and elsewhere with absolutely no resolution. Many have no replies at all. Add to that the difficulty of searching for this particular problem; people use different terms/words to describe the same thing.


Do you have a PDF "print" that was made prior to this problem or prior to any recent OS or Numbers updates? Does it also print incorrectly?


Do you have another printer (from a different manufacturer, preferably) you can print to?


Did you try deleting your printer and reinstalling it?



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Question marked as Best reply

May 5, 2023 1:06 PM in response to Rod Miller

It is amazing how many printing problems get posted here and elsewhere with absolutely no resolution. Many have no replies at all. Add to that the difficulty of searching for this particular problem; people use different terms/words to describe the same thing.


Do you have a PDF "print" that was made prior to this problem or prior to any recent OS or Numbers updates? Does it also print incorrectly?


Do you have another printer (from a different manufacturer, preferably) you can print to?


Did you try deleting your printer and reinstalling it?



May 6, 2023 11:53 AM in response to Badunit

I did not have another prior PDF to print to check it out. I do not have a second printer to test it out. BUT, I did delete the printer and added it back. VOILA! The document printed with no shading. Why? Because all of the print settings were returned to default. So what setting did I change that produced the shading in empty cells? I wracked my brain and remembered printing a document in which I changed the brightness setting to dark for a specific effect.

My printer is set to use the Last Setting Used so when I printed the spreadsheet, each blank cell was shaded. I was able to test this theory and it reproduce the shading when I changed to brightness level to dark. Wow, a simple fix from a simple adjustment. I hope this helps others learn from my mistake and all of your efforts! Thank you very much.

Apr 28, 2023 9:30 AM in response to SGIII

Thanks for responding. I powered down and restarted all devices earlier, always a simple solution. No change. The problem occurs on all Numbers spreadsheets where cells are blank. I have printed this same document, and others, several times and never had this problem until recently. The only thing that has changed are OS updates. Nothing has changed with the printer driver. To diagnose the problem, I added a character to each of the blank cells and selected white at the text color. The auto shading problem when printing STOPPED. This does not fix the problem. It gives more information to hopefully figure out what's going on. I really don't want to enter a white character in every blank cell on my Numbers documents to prevent auto shading in blank cells. Ideas? Thank you!

May 4, 2023 8:11 PM in response to Rod Miller

There have been a few oddball printing problems mentioned recently. You might look around elsewhere to see if it is just a Numbers or iWork problem or if others are having problems with other apps.


If you Print to PDF (Open in Preview), does the PDF version look wrong on the screen in the Preview app? If it looks okay, does it print ok from there?


In Numbers, did you try filling the cells with a white background rather than putting a white character in the cell? The default fill color for data cells is "none".

May 5, 2023 10:03 AM in response to Badunit

Thank you for the reply.  The problem occurs regardless if I print from the Numbers document or from a PDF file created from it.  The shading does not appear while working in the document or in print preview. I've narrowed the problem to blank cells.  I tried using a white fill background in the blank cells - same result - but when I enter anything in the cell, such as a white character, the auto shading stops. I just tested 5 other Numbers files that I have previously printed without this problem . . . they all have the problem now. What's going on? It renders the Numbers application useless. I need help with this so thank you for trying!

Print problems with Numbers

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