2004 toolbar print icon defaults to 60%

[Jonathan Duke]

I've now seen this problem on two separate systems:

Click on the Printer icon in the toolbar and the document prints out at
about 60% of original size.

Click the icon again and *most* times you get a 100% size (aka normal)
printout.

Click a third time and it is a toss-up which size prints.

According to the info for that command, it should use the defaults for
printing (which I would assume would be the same as choosing File-Print,
then clicking the Print button without changing anything else).

Printing by selecting File-Print results in the expected output.

Systems affected are running 10.3.4, Office 2004 with SP1.

I've repaired permissions, trashed prefs to no avail. I haven't
reloaded & updated again, yet.

Any thoughts/suggestions where to go from here?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Jon

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Jon,

I always use the keyboard command (Cmd>P) so I never noticed this. But I
just tried it and can confirm what you've seen (although the second time I
click the printer icon, I get the reduced size result again, not 100%).
I'll see what I can find out about this and report back.

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[John McGhie]

There is an open bug in Word 2004 that resizes the document to make room for
the Comment balloons when you print. This is explained in the Help topic
"About comments and tracked changes".

Regrettably, if you choose to print a document with tracked changes showing,
whether there are any or not, you can sometimes get this resizing effect.
That's the bug.

It's also possible that you have somehow triggered the "Allow A4/Letter
resizing" command. That command is not available in Word 2004, but it is on
the PC, where it causes a bit of a problem because it scales all the fonts
to make things fit. I doubt that it's this, however, because the change
involved there is only about 10 per cent.

The Print button on the toolbar should indeed print with the "default"
printing set-up without prompting. Whereas File>Print should show you what
each setting is. The settings concerned are stored in several places: your
printer driver, your Normal template, and the document itself.

You could try re-naming your Normal template. If that doesn't fix it, you
can then re-name it back.

Sorry not to be much help.

I've now seen this problem on two separate systems:

Click on the Printer icon in the toolbar and the document prints out at
about 60% of original size.

Click the icon again and *most* times you get a 100% size (aka normal)
printout.

Click a third time and it is a toss-up which size prints.

According to the info for that command, it should use the defaults for
printing (which I would assume would be the same as choosing File-Print,
then clicking the Print button without changing anything else).

Printing by selecting File-Print results in the expected output.

Systems affected are running 10.3.4, Office 2004 with SP1.

I've repaired permissions, trashed prefs to no avail. I haven't
reloaded & updated again, yet.

Any thoughts/suggestions where to go from here?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Jon

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

There is an open bug in Word 2004 that resizes the document to make room for
the Comment balloons when you print. This is explained in the Help topic
"About comments and tracked changes".

Regrettably, if you choose to print a document with tracked changes showing,
whether there are any or not, you can sometimes get this resizing effect.
That's the bug.

If that's the bug operating, does "60%" mean scaled down and squashed to the
left with a really wide right margin?

That bug has also been linked to printing when you are set to view Hidden
Text. See if not viewing Hidden Text makes a difference to printing with
the printer icon.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

If that's the bug operating, does "60%" mean scaled down and squashed to the
left with a really wide right margin?

That bug has also been linked to printing when you are set to view Hidden
Text. See if not viewing Hidden Text makes a difference to printing with
the printer icon.

It does. I unchecked Hidden Text and printing with the printer icon
returned to normal. So it's a bug still, but a slightly more convoluted one
that I thought. Right?

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[Daiya Mitchell]

It does. I unchecked Hidden Text and printing with the printer icon
returned to normal. So it's a bug still, but a slightly more convoluted one
that I thought. Right?

Or, just another aspect of the same bug we already know and love and they
are already trying to fix, which is good news.

But does "60%" mean the same thing as printing as though there were tracked
changes in the margins? This might be the exact same bug, if the results
when printing are exactly the same. Or it might be a separate but related
glitch in the printing mechanism.

Daiya

 

[Jonathan Duke]

The 60% does look like Track Changes printing, but track changes *isn't*
on in the documents in question and Hidden Text is *unchecked*.

Choosing File-Print, then looking at the Word options shows "Print What"
as "Document", which I'm presuming should be the default unless changed.

I'm not certain to which bug you refer, but I'd expect it to manifest
itself regardless of the route taken for the print process. Why
wouldn't clicking the icon be the same as File-Print, Print?

Cheers,
Jon

It does. I unchecked Hidden Text and printing with the printer icon
returned to normal. So it's a bug still, but a slightly more convoluted
one
that I thought. Right?

Or, just another aspect of the same bug we already know and love and they
are already trying to fix, which is good news.

But does "60%" mean the same thing as printing as though there were tracked
changes in the margins? This might be the exact same bug, if the results
when printing are exactly the same. Or it might be a separate but related
glitch in the printing mechanism.

Daiya[/QUOTE]

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I'm not certain to which bug you refer, but I'd expect it to manifest
itself regardless of the route taken for the print process. Why
wouldn't clicking the icon be the same as File-Print, Print?

It *should* be. No question. That's why it's a bug.

At any rate, we have reported the issue(s) to Microsoft and when/if we learn
anything about the situation, we'll report back.

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Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jonathan:

Why
wouldn't clicking the icon be the same as File-Print, Print?

Because they are actually different commands.

Unless you have modified your toolbars, the button on the Standard toolbar
calls an internal command named, appropriately, "FilePrintDefault".

The option on the menu calls "FilePrint".

So the button on the toolbar is designed to enable quick access to your
default printing specification. The one in the File menu is designed for
"other situations."

I usually modify my toolbars to place FilePrint in both places, because I
rarely use the same print setup twice. This has become particularly bad
since I finally caved in and bought a printer!

Owners of ink-jet printers will rapidly confirm that one prints at Maximum
Resolution only when you can afford a new cartridge and have other things to
do while you wait for the result

Having been in the computer industry since about 1960-something, I have
always considered that "printers" were nasty trouble-prone mechanical
devices with a taste for expensive maintenance that only "employers" should
own. I never had one -- I would throw the print file on a floppy and
sneaker-net it to work.

I caved in when my housemate developed a taste for digital photography. The
office laser printer is not usually capable of doing such a wonderful job
with photographic images. Those that are, are normally guarded by people
who would make airport security at JFK look like learners... Your typical
office manager is severely intellectually challenged, particularly in his or
her ability to comprehend how pictures of your girlfriend's cooing offspring
are not only an essential work-related purpose, but fully justify being sent
to the colour printer

Cheers

Cheers,
Jon



Or, just another aspect of the same bug we already know and love and they
are already trying to fix, which is good news.

But does "60%" mean the same thing as printing as though there were tracked
changes in the margins? This might be the exact same bug, if the results
when printing are exactly the same. Or it might be a separate but related
glitch in the printing mechanism.

Daiya

[/QUOTE]

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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi John,

Thanks for that explanation. I, for one, wasn't aware that the print icon
and File>Print called different commands. However none of this explains the
shrunken printing result using the print icon, which is still a bug as far
as I can tell since the default printing settings are not set for 60%.

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***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Beth:

As far as I am concerned, it's a bug too.

As far as I can tell, it's triggered by the "Tracked Changes as Balloons"
option, and the bug has been acknowledged by Microsoft.

I think what is confusing everyone is that the document does not have to
actually CONTAIN any tracked changes. It simply needs to be in a state
where Word "thinks" it has (or had) tracked changes. That's the bug...

The tracked changes are stored in a different text story from the main text
in a document, so they are one of the things that can corrupt. Doing a
Maggie may fix a document that has this behaviour. So may round-tripping to
Save As Web Page and back.

Maggie = Copy all but last paragraph marker...

Cheers

Hi John,

Thanks for that explanation. I, for one, wasn't aware that the print icon
and File>Print called different commands. However none of this explains the
shrunken printing result using the print icon, which is still a bug as far
as I can tell since the default printing settings are not set for 60%.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi John,

How's this for a fine pickle!? I went to test your theory that document
corruption may be the trigger for this bug. I opened the same document that
had printed at 60% the other day and it now prints just fine using the
printer icon. I can't think of anything that is different except that I may
have quit and relaunched Word between then and now ­ but I'm not positive of
that. [Jonathan and Daiya, if you're still following this, try quitting and
relaunching Word to see if the printer icon behavior changes.]

Anyway, the document that exhibited the buggy behavior is a one-page
document with just text in it. I doubt it could have become corrupted and
it *never* had track changes even turned on, nor has it been altered in any
way by anyone other than me. I can't think of any reason why Word might
"think" it has or had track changes. (Then again, I don't know why it's
printing fine at the moment.) So I'm not convinced that it's the same bug
even though it manifests the same way.

Beth

P.S. Would you give up on the "Maggie" business already . It takes you
longer to explain it every time you use it than to just explain the
procedure alone. Nice try ;-).

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

I have not tested this at all, since printer access is not so convenient
right now. So I have not seen the 60%.

However, I had a thought. The other bug was intermittent and difficult to
reproduce--apparently tied to viewing Hidden Text, but not consistently
occurring under those conditions. I think at least once I eliminated the bug
by changing printers or by cancelling, then printing again. Based on that
strikes me as possible that something about bringing up the File | Print
dialog reduces the occurrence, even if this is a different bug.

By the way, could Jonathan Duke mention what printers he saw this problem
on, just to satisfy my curiosity? If still around.

Daiya

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Daiya,

When the bug was still manifesting on my machine (a week ago now?), there
was no reduction in occurrence after using File>Print. I went back and
forth between File>Print and the printer icon a few times and the printer
icon always displayed the 60% phenomenon.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Jonathan Duke]

Daiya,

Sorry about the large lag in posting this-missed the last few posts
until I went back to search again on the issue.

I'm seeing this bug on a Minolta DiAlta Di470 copier, Lexmark T630
laser, Apple Laserwriter 16/600, & HP LaserJet 2200dtn.

Note that this is in multiple locations, so the bug would appear to be
resident within Word and not site-specific.

Cheers,
Jon

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks, I'm sure every little bit helps them track it down. (I think the
related bug, purely coincidentally, happened to people with HP printers,
which is why I was curious.)

DM

 

[Hans M. Aus]

With A4 page size and document margins outside the LW printable area:

1) Using CMD>Print, a warning appears that the margins are outside the
printable area and the document prints OK.

2) Using the toolbar print, the warning does not appear and the document
is reduced 60%.

Can I set the toolbar print to function the same as CMD>Print?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Well, I think the toolbar print is PrintImmediately, without bringing up the
dialog, right? And cmd-P is Print..., which brings up the dialog.

You can remove the PrintImmediately icon and put a Print... icon there
instead, via the Tools | Customize Toolbars and Menus dialog (the icons are
identical, just linked to different commands). That answers the question you
asked, but I'm not sure that's what you wanted.

It's printing at 60% because there's a bug where it leaves room to print the
comments/track changes in the margin even when you don't want it to print
them. Turning off the settings to View and Print Hidden Text in the
Preferences dialog has helped some people eliminate this. If you use Google
Groups to read the entire thread, you might learn more.

Although conceivably you have found a new bug--what are your doc margins set
to? I'm assuming there are comments or tracked changes in this document and
that the margin warning and the 60% problem are totally separate and
unrelated, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Hans M. Aus]

The problematic documents are forms and questionnaires from the
university administration, and are always locked. The document margins
are wider than the printable area of our HP and Apple printers. There's
no problem printing on an inkjet printer from a PC.

The document doesn't contain any comments or tracking changes, and are
usually from an older version of MSWord/Windows.

Can I change the 60% reduction to, for example, 95% ?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Let me back up. When you say printing at 60%, what does it look like? Is
it all squished with wide right and bottom margins?

If you go to Tools | Macros, is there a macro named FilePrint listed in that
dialog?