Transparent areas are printed as black when you use a v4 XPS printer driver in Windows

Symptoms

This issue occurs when you print a color document in the black-and-white mode.

Cause

The issue occurs because the printer prints any non-255 values as black in the black-and-white mode. During the grayscale conversion, transparent areas of the document are being converted to a shade of gray (254, 254, 254) instead of 255, 255, 255. Therefore, they are printed as black.

Hotfix Information

Important If you install a language pack after you install this hotfix, you must reinstall this hotfix. Therefore, we recommend that you install any language packs that you need before you install this hotfix. For more information, see Add language packs to Windows.

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that's described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

If the hotfix is available for download, there's a "Hotfix Download Available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section doesn't appear, submit a request to Microsoft Customer Service and Support to get the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that don't qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=supportNote The "Hotfix Download Available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you don't see your language, it's because a hotfix isn't available for that language.

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

References

See the terminology that Microsoft uses to describe software updates.

File Information

The English (United States) version of this software update installs files that have the attributes that are listed in the following tables. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Be aware that dates and times for these files on your local computer are displayed in your local time and with your current daylight saving time bias. The dates and times may also change when you perform certain operations on the files.