Intermittent printing problems with Word

[Stuart]

I have the IMAC G5 10.3.7 and am using a HP Officejet 6110 all-in-one
printer. About one out of five times I go to print the printer stops
printing in the middle of the last page. I called HP and they tried
everything and narrowed the problem down to a Microsoft Word problem.
Has anyone else had this problem???? Thanks, S

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

When I worked for HP, we had a green button on the desk labelled "Press once
to put the blame on Microsoft, twice to blame Apple..."

That said, there's a possibility that they are correct. Test it by:

Using the same document that stopped, use Word>File>Print and choose a
different printer. I have Adobe PDF configured as a printer here, so I
would use that.

If that job completes correctly, it wasn't Word.

Try File>Print>Output Options and check the Print to File box. Inspect the
result in Adobe Reader. If it's OK there, it's not Word. It's likely to be
a network time-out, caused either by your network configuration or by
something else overloading your computer. Try quitting all other
applications except Word and see if you can reproduce the problem.

Try File>Print>Paper Handling and check "Reverse Print Order". If the bit
that didn't print before appears this time, it's not Word, and it is likely
to be a printer memory problem (i.e. Not enough memory in the printer, or
the printer driver not being configured to 'protect memory per page').

It "could", of course, be the "Document itself." Would you care to tell us
what kinds of things are in the document, how it was prepared, on which
version of Word, and how much editing it has had?

Hope this helps

I have the IMAC G5 10.3.7 and am using a HP Officejet 6110 all-in-one
printer. About one out of five times I go to print the printer stops
printing in the middle of the last page. I called HP and they tried
everything and narrowed the problem down to a Microsoft Word problem.
Has anyone else had this problem???? Thanks, S

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Stuart]

Thanks for your response. I like your suggestion, but the problem is
that it doesn't do it every time. I can print a document that is 6
pages and have it get stuck on the 6th page and then try to reprint it
and it works fine. It rarely does it twice in a row, and happens
interittently. It does happen more often when the document is 4 pages
or more in length. I am using MS Word documents that are primarily
straight text with no special formats. Some were originally produced
in Windows MS Word version 2002 (10.2627.225). When I purchased my
IMAC I moved the files over to the Mac. Thanks, S

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Stuart:

Ah hah! The very toxic Word 2002 was involved, was it?

OK, that gives me a clue. Chances are your documents are cluttered with all
manner of corruptions produced by Word 2002.

Since they're mainly plain text, next time you find one that is a problem,
save it as a Web Page. Close it, and open the web version. Re-save as a
document with a different name.

Word 2004 will clean out all of the crud from it so it doesn't confuse the
hell out of your printer!

The other thing I would be looking at is network time-outs and printer
memory. Printer memory errors usually produce PostScript garbage, but
sometimes they just "stop" things.

See if your driver has a setting for "Protect memory per page". If it has,
turn it on.

And speak to your network tech about whether the network might be slowing
down.

Cheers

Thanks for your response. I like your suggestion, but the problem is
that it doesn't do it every time. I can print a document that is 6
pages and have it get stuck on the 6th page and then try to reprint it
and it works fine. It rarely does it twice in a row, and happens
interittently. It does happen more often when the document is 4 pages
or more in length. I am using MS Word documents that are primarily
straight text with no special formats. Some were originally produced
in Windows MS Word version 2002 (10.2627.225). When I purchased my
IMAC I moved the files over to the Mac. Thanks, S

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Stuart]

Thanks for the advice. I will try saving to a web page next time as
you suggested. You also suggested checking my driver to see if there
is a "Protect memory per page" setting. Where would I find the driver?
FYI, I am not on a network. I use the IMAC at home. Look forward to
your response. S

 

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Oh, OK...

You are installed locally, so to your Printers part of System Preferences
(sorry, I don't have my Mac with me and I am having Faded Brain Syndrome
this morning....) ad dig around amongst the "Advanced" options. Most local
printer drivers do ot have the setting, so do not be surprised if you do not
find it.

The purpose of the setting is to cause the printer driver to flush the
printer's memory before making up each page of the print image. You would
expect the setting on a PostScript printer attached to a network. turning
it ON slows down the speed of printing but enables the printer to handle
much larger documents with a minimal amount of real memory.

Cheers

--
--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410