I encountered a different problem with forecolor with xls files. Actually not sure if this is related to jasper generated xls or with hardware. When my report is fitted into a A3 size and printed in color, the black fonts (on a white background) sometimes appear in green, yellow or red. The other colors are not affected. If I save the file and reprint, the color seems ok but this is not an ideal solution for my users who are generating reports via a web application and would like to print the report with the minimum number of clicks. and of course, printing in pdf is ok. Note that I have used only colors that are excel-friendly / no overlapping cells etc as listed in the faqs. Wonder anyone else ever encountered this problem? Thanks!