A QuickBooks reader wrote: “We recently upgraded from QuickBooks Enterprise 14 to 17, now when we print our Invoice Forms, we have a row of dots between the rows of items. Help?”
I will say there are three key pieces of information in what this user wrote, but even with these three keys, I still had to inquire for additional information.
First, she upgraded from Enterprise 14 to Enterprise 17. Second, she talks about printing on Invoice "Forms," which makes me think she must be using pre-printed invoices as opposed to blank paper. And third, the use of the terms "dots" is valuable.
Could this possibly be the very last business on the face of the planet using some type of "dot matrix" mechanical (impact and ribbon) printer rather than a laser or ink-jet?
After a short email, the reply confirmed my hypothesis.
She was using a custom "tractor-fed" multi-part form (not even a standard QuickBooks pre-printed Invoice) rather than blank paper. And, in order to accomplish this printing, she still was using an old dot-matrix mechanical printer designed with a striking tension to produce a carbonless four-part form.
In upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise 17 before the sunset of 2014 QuickBooks versions, it had come into play with its first version of the software, that by default, prints every other row of items on the invoice "shaded" (seen below). QuickBooks Enterprise 15 first started offering this feature.
invoice shading
Of course, this technical change was incorporated into QuickBooks with the belief that the vast majority of users printed forms on blank paper, or that even Intuit custom forms using a laser or ink-jet printer. Intuit didn’t develop any special formatting for businesses that still used "impact style" dot-matrix printers.
When a dot-matrix printer is sent the invoice form from QuickBooks, it responds by printing rows of dots where the shading should be (seen below).
dot 1
Notice that there is a row of dots at the top of the row that should be shaded and one at the bottom that should be shaded.
Fortunately, this is an easy enough fix. All you have to do is turn off the shading by unchecking the "Shade alternate table rows" in the Print/Printer-Settings window. (see illustration below.)
invoice shading option
Once you do this, the data prints properly, even on an old dot-matrix printer.
dot 2
Note: The shadows appearing in both custom forms are from the NCR multi-part forms being folded, not from the actual printing process.