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Working with Color
Color and text
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It is not a coincidence that the overwhelming majority of text you see is
printed in black toner on white paper. Text in black on white is highly legible
and is not fatiguing to read for extended periods. For many color materials,
using black text on a white background and confining color to graphic
elements and headings is a good choice.
Color text can add flair to documents printed on paper when used skillfully,
and is widely used in presentations. When using color text, avoid dazzling
text and background combinations created from primary complements,
especially red and cyan or red and blue; they are visually fatiguing and hard
to read. Color text is more legible when distinguished from its background
by a difference in lightness—for example, dark blue text on a light beige
background. In addition, using many different colors in a string of text
makes for a confused appearance and is hard to read. However, using a
single highlight color is an effective way to draw the reader's eye to selected
words.
When using color text, keep in mind that small font sizes typically do not
print in color with the same sharpness as in black. In most applications,
black text prints exclusively in black toner while color text usually prints with
two or more toners. Any misregistration between the different toners on
paper causes color text to lose definition. You can make test prints to find
the smallest point size at which color text prints clearly. When using high-
end graphics applications that allow you to specify color as percentages of
cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, you can create pure cyan or pure
magenta text that prints with the same sharpness as black text. (Pure
yellow text is extremely hard to read on anything but a dark or
complementary background.)
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