The colors of shapes are incorrectly displayed or incorrectly printed in black and white in Visio

When you work with shapes that have colors in Microsoft Office Visio 2007 and in Microsoft Office Visio 2003, the colors of the shapes are incorrectly displayed or incorrectly printed in black and white. Specifically, you experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• Shapes lose their colors when you drag the shapes from the stencil to the drawing page. The shapes in your drawing are displayed in black and white.
• Shapes lose their colors when you print your drawing. The shapes in the printed drawing are displayed in black and white.

To troubleshoot this issue, follow these steps.

Step 1: Disable the "Use High Contrast" setting if it is enabled in Accessibility options

To disable the Use High Contrast setting, use the following keyboard shortcut: In Windows Vista, open the Ease of Access Center item in Control Panel, and then click Set up High Contrast to disable the keyboard shortcut that is mentioned in this section.

In Windows XP, click the Display tab of Accessibility Options in Control Panel, and then click Settings to disable the keyboard shortcut that is mentioned in this section.

If this issue persists, go to the next step.

Step 2: Determine whether the issue is related to your video adaptor

To determine whether the issue is related to your video adaptor, follow these steps.

Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

1. Shut down and then restart the computer.
2. When you see the "Please select the operating system to start" message, press F8.
3. Use the ARROW keys to select Safe Mode, and then press ENTER.
4. If you have a dual-boot or multi-boot computer, select the appropriate operating system from the list that appears, and then press ENTER.
5. Start Visio, and then open your drawing.
6. Use one of the following procedures, depending on your situation:
   • If the issue no longer occurs, the issue may be related to your video adaptor. Update the video adaptor driver. Contact the manufacturer of your video adaptor for information about how to obtain and install the latest version of the video driver for your video adaptor.
     
     For information about your hardware manufacturer, visit the following Web site:
     http://support.microsoft.com/gp/vendors/en-us (http://support.microsoft.com/gp/vendors/en-us)
   • If the issue persists, go to the next step.

Step 3: Create a new user profile

Create a new user profile, and then test to see if the new user profile resolves the issue. To do this, follow these steps.

Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

1. Log on as the administrator or as a user who has administrator credentials.
2. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
3. Expand Local Users and Groups, and then expand Users.
4. On the Action menu, click New User.
5. Type the user name and the password for the new user. Specify any additional settings that you want, click Create, and then click Close.
6. Log on to the computer as the new user whose profile you created in step 2e.
7. Configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files and folders. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. Start Windows Explorer.
   2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
   3. In the Advanced Settings box, click Show hidden files and folders, and then click OK.
8. Start Visio, and then open your drawing.
9. Use one of the following procedures, depending on your situation:
   • If the issue no longer occurs when you log on to the computer by using the new user profile, delete the files that are located in the following folders in your original user profile. In the following paths, UserName is the original user name that you used to log on to the computer.
     • Drive:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application Data\Microsoft\Visio
       This folder is present on the hard disk only if you created a custom toolbar in Visio.
     • Drive:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Visio
     Note When you delete the files that are contained in these folders, custom toolbars and custom folders that you configured in Visio are removed. Therefore, you have to reconfigure the custom toolbars and the custom folders that you want.
   • If the issue persists, log off the computer as the new user whose profile you created. Log on to the computer by using your original user profile, and then go to Step 3.
10. Log on to the computer by using your original user profile.

Step 4: Delete the Visio registry subkey

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Delete the following registry subkey:

Visio 2007

Visio 2003

This registry subkey stores Visio settings. This subkey is re-created the next time that you start Visio. When you start Visio after you delete this subkey, Visio uses the default settings. If you previously used custom settings, reconfigure Visio to use the custom settings that you want.

To delete this subkey, follow these steps:

Visio 2007

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Right-click the following registry subkey, and then click Delete:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Visio
3. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the deletion.
4. Exit Registry Editor.

Visio 2003

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Right-click the following registry subkey, and then click Delete:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Visio
3. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the deletion.
4. Quit Registry Editor.

For more information about Safe Mode, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: