Which one of the following charts use better colors?

It is not surprising if you prefer the one on the left as the colors used are of high contrast.

However, will you change your mind after you read the same charts printed in black and white?

You can see from the above, the original contrasting colors on the left become hard to distinguish from each other at a glance.  (Believe it or not, if the quality of your printer is not so good, the colors may look the same…)

On the contrary, the colors used in the other chart still stand out from each other.

Let’s take a look at the color plates:

When we read across on a row, we see that some colors look almost the same when printed in black and white.  e.g. The Red (2nd column) and Purple (last column) of the standard colors

However, when we read down on a column (i.e. same color of different intensity), we can still easily see the difference.  Right!?

So now, which one do you prefer?

Think about how your audience is going to read your report.  @_@