If gradients are printing with noticeable bands rather than smooth transitions, check the following:
1) Are you printing from a color - capable Macintosh? Non-color ready Macintosh computers cannot print Gradients with smooth color blends (Mac Plus, SE, Classic, Powerbook 100). They lack the Color QuickDraw information in the ROMs needed for printing gradients (and for dithering solid colors in a document to equivalent grays when printing to black-and-white printer). MacDraw Pro allows users of non-color Macs to create full 32-bit color documents. However, these documents must be printed from color-capable Macs to achieve smoothly printed gradients.
2) Is the print dialog box set to print "Black & White" rather than "Color/Grayscale"? To print gradients with smooth gray changes, Color/Grayscale must be selected in the Print window when printing with the LaserWriter driver.
3) In Preferences, click the printing icon, then increase the number of gradient printing steps from 32 to a higher number, say 128. This will improve print quality to most Postscript printers and DeskWriters (version 5.0 of DeskWriter driver tested).
TIP: To make the gradient printing steps less noticeable, edit the gradient so that there is less contrast between the beginning and ending colors. For example, a gradient that shades from all white to all black would contain the maximum possible contrast between the beginning and ending colors. Try using a gradient that shades from, say 80% white to 20% white. The shade transitions will be closer together, so the banding in the gradient will be less noticeable when printed.