Hi all,
I am trying to print some white text with transparent background. I am using it to reproduce a guitar headstock logo and can't seem to figure it out. So far I have managed to print the logo onto white paper and it comes out with a black outline which I can't have. It needs to be just the white fill. When I select the object with the select tool and set the fill to flat color and the stroke to no paint it disappears from the screen, but is still visible if I hover over it with the "edit paths by nodes" tool. It has already been traced. I have tried exporting as a bitmap and printing it that way but I still get nothing. Ultimately this one word of white text will be printed onto waterslide decal transfer paper which is somewhat costly and I don't have a whack of it to make mistakes with. The paper I'm using has pre-existing lines so I can tell if it's printing the white text, which it is not. I had the logo sent to me by the guitar company who sent me a .ai file which I traced and am now working with a .svg file. It seems like everything is fine but my printer just spits the paper out without laying down any ink when I press print. Any help on how to achieve this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Help printing white text on transparent background
Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
Welcome to the forum 
I never really thought of this before, but I assume that typical color printers can print in white? Yes? Because technically, white is not a color (to my understanding, although I might not be using proper terminology). When you print on paper, with the black stroke, does the white print then? Is it only when you remove the stroke that the white doesn't print?
Are you able to print any color for the fill? Are you able to print (practice) on paper with the fill set to any other color besides white? If so, you could use any color for testing and troubleshooting, and then switch to white for the final decal print.....again, assuming white can be printed. If white can't be printed, maybe you could use a very, very light gray....like #fefefeff or something??
And just for the record -- You could make sure the alpha value is 255 (slider at the right end). Also check Opacity is 100% (slider also at the right end). If you're using the Fill and Stroke dialog, make sure you're looking at the Fill tab for the fill, and Stroke Paint for stroke. Those tabs look almost identical, and I get them mixed up myself, all the time
Make sure about the opacity of the layer, and that the layer's not locked or hidden when you print.
Does the image fall entirely within the page border? If not, then objects with areas outside the border might not print at all (depending on settings and type of printer).
I'm not sure what else to suggest. If you still can't get it to work, you could show us the SVG file, and maybe we could find the problem. Actually though, it sounds like something that will work itself out, before we get to that point.
Let us know what happens

I never really thought of this before, but I assume that typical color printers can print in white? Yes? Because technically, white is not a color (to my understanding, although I might not be using proper terminology). When you print on paper, with the black stroke, does the white print then? Is it only when you remove the stroke that the white doesn't print?
Are you able to print any color for the fill? Are you able to print (practice) on paper with the fill set to any other color besides white? If so, you could use any color for testing and troubleshooting, and then switch to white for the final decal print.....again, assuming white can be printed. If white can't be printed, maybe you could use a very, very light gray....like #fefefeff or something??
And just for the record -- You could make sure the alpha value is 255 (slider at the right end). Also check Opacity is 100% (slider also at the right end). If you're using the Fill and Stroke dialog, make sure you're looking at the Fill tab for the fill, and Stroke Paint for stroke. Those tabs look almost identical, and I get them mixed up myself, all the time

Does the image fall entirely within the page border? If not, then objects with areas outside the border might not print at all (depending on settings and type of printer).
I'm not sure what else to suggest. If you still can't get it to work, you could show us the SVG file, and maybe we could find the problem. Actually though, it sounds like something that will work itself out, before we get to that point.
Let us know what happens

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Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
D'oh!
I never even thought if it could print in white, which it can't being just a little inkjet. I'll have to take it to a print shop. Thanks for all the suggestions, very much appreciated.
And yeah it prints in faint colors no problem, just a little hard finding the right one. Thanks again.
I never even thought if it could print in white, which it can't being just a little inkjet. I'll have to take it to a print shop. Thanks for all the suggestions, very much appreciated.
And yeah it prints in faint colors no problem, just a little hard finding the right one. Thanks again.
- flamingolady
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- Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:40 pm
Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
yep, our little printers don't have a tank for white ink, so unless the paper is white, the object won't appear as white. good luck, and let us know who ended up printing it for you.
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Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
Its a quite new thing for me because you want to get it in white.You must direct ask from a company manufacturers for this.
Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
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Re: Help printing white text on transparent background
I have a similar case, where I want to print on a transparent surface with a UV-printer. It is a Mimaki UJF-3042.
I have a square filled with white color and it is not printed out.
I have a square filled with white color and it is not printed out.