How to Print in Color on a Mac (Fix Black and White Printing)

Eric DawsonByEric Dawson Computers & Software

To print in color on a Mac, open the document, press Command-P to bring up the print dialog, then look for the color option inside it. Click Show Details first if the window looks small, since that reveals the color mode menu on most printers. Choose Color instead of Black & White or Grayscale, then click Print. If no color choice shows up, the printer may not support color, or an administrator has locked the default to black and white to save on ink. Exact wording shifts between Preview, Word, and Google Drive, and between printer brands such as Brother and HP, but the core steps stay the same across recent versions of macOS.

How Do You Print in Color on a Mac

Five steps cover almost every app and printer combination.

  1. Open the print dialog. Select File > Print from the menu bar, or press Command-P, with your document already open.
  2. Expand the window. Click Show Details near the bottom of the dialog if it looks compact and few settings appear.
  3. Find the color menu. Look for a dropdown labeled Color Mode, Color/Grayscale, or something similar, usually placed toward the middle or bottom of the expanded dialog.
  4. Select Color. Pick Color instead of Black & White or Grayscale from that dropdown.
  5. Print the document. Click the Print button to send the job to the printer.

Menu wording varies by printer driver, so a dropdown might read Color Mode on one machine and Color/Grayscale on another. Both control the same setting, and both sit inside the expanded print dialog rather than the compact one. A printer that only supports black and white output will simply never show that dropdown at all, no matter how the document itself is formatted.

Why Does Your Mac Print in Black and White by Default

Your Mac prints in black and white by default when an administrator, an IT department, or the app itself has set that as the standard option, usually to control ink costs. Shared and managed printers are the most common source of this setting.

Many Managed Print Service devices, the shared printers common in offices and schools, are configured by their administrators to print in black and white unless a user actively switches the mode. Colleges and universities often do the same on public lab and library printers, since black and white output costs less per page and discourages unnecessary color printing.

Even a document made entirely of black text draws from the color ink cartridges once color mode is turned on, because mixing all four inks together produces a denser, richer black than the black cartridge alone. That is one reason administrators default to black and white rather than leaving color on for everyone.

None of this is a fault in the Mac itself. A personal inkjet at home, with no administrator involved, keeps whatever mode was used last unless a preset resets it, so the black and white default shows up almost entirely on shared or managed devices.

Where to Find Color Options in Preview, Word, and Google Drive

Color options sit in a different spot depending on the app, though each one still runs through the same underlying print dialog. The table below shows where to look in four common cases.

Application Path to Color Options Notes
Preview File > Print > Presets (choose Black & White, or leave the default for color) Built-in Mac application
Google Drive File > Print > Color dropdown (choose Monochrome, or leave the default) Runs in a browser tab
Microsoft Word File > Print > Presets menu (choose Black and White or Color) Available through Office 365 or standalone Word
Most other apps File > Print (or Command-P), then Show Details > Color Mode dropdown Applies to the majority of standard Mac apps

Word and Preview tuck the setting inside the Presets menu rather than a separate Color Mode dropdown, which trips up people who expect it in the same spot every time. Google Drive keeps it simpler with a single Color dropdown near the top of its print screen. When none of these match what is on screen, check sub-menus labeled Print Settings or Quality & Media, since some printer drivers bury the color toggle a level deeper than Apple’s own dialog does.

How to Turn on Color Printing for Specific Printer Brands

Color settings depend on the printer brand and the service running it, so the click path changes even though the goal stays the same. Three setups cover most home and office situations.

MPS and Managed Print Service Printers

These shared office and campus printers route every job through a central management system, so the color toggle often lives one layer deeper than it does on a home inkjet. Expect this exact submenu structure at most workplaces that print through a managed fleet rather than a single desktop printer.

Brother Printers

Choosing color on a Brother printer means selecting PRINT SETTINGS from the dropdown menu in the print dialog, then Color/Grayscale, then picking the color option. Brother labels this menu in capital letters in its own driver software, which can look different from Apple’s native print dialog at first glance. Once that driver panel is open, the color toggle behaves the same way it does anywhere else on macOS.

HP and Other Printer Brands

For HP and most other brands, check System Settings, then Printers & Scanners, for device-specific color controls alongside the standard print dialog. If a color option is missing entirely, an outdated driver is often the reason, and downloading the current one from the manufacturer usually restores it. Newer HP models sometimes add their own status app, but the underlying color toggle still lives inside the same print dialog macOS provides.

Why Selecting a Color Printer Alone Will Not Guarantee a Color Print

Selecting a color printer alone will not guarantee a color print if the color mode inside the dialog still reads Black & White. That distinction catches out students and staff at campuses with dedicated color queues most often.

Some universities run a separate destination, named something like Find-Me-Print-Color, specifically for color jobs. Sending a document there is only half the setup. Students also need to set the color mode itself to Color inside the print dialog, since leaving it on Black & White still produces a black and white page even though the color queue charged a color rate for the job.

Color printing at these campuses is also usually limited to specific library locations rather than every lab on campus, so checking which printers actually support it first can save a wasted trip and an unnecessary charge.

How to Save a Color Printing Preset on Mac

You save a color printing preset on Mac by setting the options once inside File > Print, including any other settings worth keeping, then storing them under the Presets menu for one-click reuse.

  1. Set your options.
  2. Open the Presets menu. Click the Presets dropdown near the top of the print dialog.
  3. Save the preset. Choose Save Current Settings as Preset.
  4. Name it. Type something clear, such as Color Printing, so it is easy to spot later.
  5. Reuse it. Select that preset, or choose Last Used Settings, the next time a document needs the same setup.

A saved preset removes the guesswork from every future print job. Switching between a Color Printing preset and a Black and White preset takes one click once both exist, rather than a trip through the same dropdown each time. Anyone who prints from more than one app benefits most, since the preset stays tied to the printer rather than to any single program.

Since 2023, I have owned a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1300, a small monument to my apparent belief that papers require formal processing before they can leave my sight. In How to Save a Color Printing Preset on Mac, separate Color Printing and Black and White presets make more sense than letting Last Used Settings make an expensive creative decision.

How to Use ColorSync Utility for Advanced Color Management

ColorSync Utility gives finer control over color when printing images and PDFs, beyond the plain Color or Black & White choice in the standard dialog. Three color management modes are available inside it.

Option What It Does
Prematch to Printer Profile Adjusts colors on the Mac side to match the specific printer’s profile before sending the job
Hand Off to Printer Sends raw color data and lets the printer’s own software make the adjustments
Print as Color Target Prints without any color adjustment, useful for testing or calibrating a printer

Photographers and anyone printing color-critical images tend to reach for these settings, while an everyday letter or spreadsheet rarely needs them. Prematch to Printer Profile is the closest thing to a safe default among the three, since it accounts for how that specific printer renders color before the job ever leaves the Mac.

What to Do if Color Printing Options Are Missing or Won’t Work

Start by confirming the printer is connected and powered on, since a missing color option is often a connection problem rather than a settings problem. Work through the checks below in order before assuming the printer itself is broken.

Issue Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Printer not responding Power off the printer and wait 10 seconds Power it back on and wait until it reports ready Confirm it shows up under System Settings > Printers & Scanners
Color options missing Click Show Details in the print dialog Check every dropdown for hidden printer options Download an updated driver from the manufacturer
Defaulting to black and white Confirm Color is selected inside the print dialog Check the printer’s own physical control panel for a locked setting Remove and reinstall the printer in System Settings

Removing and reinstalling a printer fixes more stuck settings than any other single step. Go to System Settings, then Printers & Scanners, select the printer, click the minus symbol to remove it, then add it back so macOS pulls a fresh driver profile.

Wireless printers sometimes need a full power cycle, unplugging the device and plugging it back in, or a temporary USB-C connection if the wireless link keeps dropping mid setup. Apple’s own print settings guide covers the System Settings side of this in more detail for anyone reinstalling a printer from scratch. None of these steps require reinstalling macOS itself, only the printer’s driver profile.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Color Printing Use More Ink Even When the Page Is Mostly Black Text?

Yes. Once color mode is turned on, a Mac blends all four ink cartridges together to produce black text, since combining cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks creates a denser output than the black cartridge alone. Switching to Black & White mode for text-only documents uses only the black cartridge and saves color ink for jobs that actually need it.

What Is the Keyboard Shortcut to Open the Print Dialog on a Mac?

Command-P opens the print dialog in almost any Mac app, from Preview to Word to a browser tab. It works the same as choosing File, then Print, from the menu bar. Either method lands on the same dialog, so use whichever is faster in the moment.

Why Doesn’t a Print in Color Checkbox Appear in My Print Dialog?

A Print in Color checkbox, or an equivalent dropdown, only appears if the connected printer actually supports color output. Black and white laser printers never show one, since there is no color hardware to control. Confirm the printer model supports color before assuming a setting is hidden somewhere in the dialog.

Can a Mac Remember the Last Print Settings Automatically?

Yes, through the Presets menu in the print dialog. Choosing Last Used Settings applies whatever color mode, paper size, and layout were used on the previous print job, which saves a step for anyone who mostly prints the same way each time. A named preset still works better for switching deliberately between a color setup and a black and white one, since Last Used Settings only ever remembers the single most recent choice.

Getting a Mac to print in color almost always comes down to one dropdown inside an expanded print dialog, though its exact label and position shift by app and by printer brand. Save a preset once the right combination is found, and future jobs need nothing more than a single click before printing.

References

Sources read in September 2026.

Eric Dawson

I'm Eric Dawson, and I write The Money Watch from north Columbus, Ohio. Most of what I cover comes from my own life: renting, a 2014 Honda Fit, parking, computers, food and the bills behind all of it. I spent four years in an apartment-property office and eleven on a distributor's operations desk, reading leases and invoices. Where you need real information, I research the maker's or agency's own page and independent sources and report what they publish. I don't give tax, investment, legal or medical advice.