I've been struggling with this issue all day. Initially, I thought it was a problem with the print settings, but then I realized that it's actually the "Print background colors and images" option in IE causing the trouble.
Here is the last test case code I used:
<html>
<style type="text/css">body{font-family:Courier;}pre{display:inline;}</style>
<body>
<b><font color="#FFFF00">this is a test</font></b><br/>
</body>
</html>
In Internet Explorer, "this is a test" appears as a bright yellow. But when printed or previewed for printing, it looks more like a muddy yellow. The same issue occurs if I try to export to PDF using a virtual PDF printer. Enabling "Print background colors and images" results in the correct yellow shade, although programmatically setting this option seems impossible based on my research.
It's not just yellow; other similar colors also end up looking alike in the print preview. Since I need to differentiate colors based on error margins, I can't simply use hues that are too similar.
So how can I work around this issue? It's puzzling why a setting for background colors would affect foreground text like this (unless there's a way to force foreground styling?). My HTML skills are quite basic and haven't been utilized for some time...
Thanks in advance for any assistance!