Issue when Printing from Illustrator CS5

Transparency Issue when Printing from Illustrator CS5

I recently designed a flyer for an event that a group of artists and I are doing as a not-for-profit organization that we started, to help clean up the area and promote the arts.

When I print the file (saved as an AI), the colors are bold, the font is crisp, and everthing overall looks fantastic, apart from this "box" around some of the elements I have created/added to the file.

When being printed from a jpeg format, the boxes are not present, but the image overall is of lesser quality (i know it's from being compressed to a jpeg), and the colors are not as bold.

I only have a black & white printer. I printed it to see what it'd look like on paper (8.5"x11"), and that's when I noticed this problem.

The elements which have this box around them were edited in Photoshop CS 6 (trial), where I had (at least thought), disposed of each elements background, so I could import them into AI as objects, without any background.

The files were edited in PS in new documents with a transparent background. I've even recreated/re-added the elements from PS back into AI with the same issue.

The image also looks perfect on my screen, no boxes whatsoever. I've tried playing around with printer settings, transparency/raster settings, but the only thing I can get close, is the low-quality jpeg file.

Any ideas what's going on here? The pictures below show a photo of the AI and the jpeg, and a screencap of my desktop as the AI stands right now. (Also not sure why photobucket rotated my picture, it's proper on my display and when I open the file)


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Not sure if you have done so because the image is too small to see but make sure the colour setting is CMYK - for printing rather than RGB or other models. I think AI sets this as default but as I always check that beforehand I can't really remember.

Another thing is printing directly from the application, this is the best way to copy what is onscreen. It can be a bit confusing because it isn't as simple as just 'click print' but I'm sure you'll know what you're doing. If you do have to print from another source then the only image format that will be anywhere near an onscreen replica in terms of quality is TIFF. JPEG compression is just too harsh around the edges and often blurs. JPEG 2000 is better but not as well supported.