Multi lines of text = print mayhem

[Stan The Man]

Does Leopard do strange things when printing from Excel 2004? I have an
Excel report document which has several lines of text to a cell. When I
print it (to either of my connected printers or to PDF) the text lines
are ranged right instead of left and some characters unexpectedly
disappear outside the frame of the cell.

Of course the document displays fine and when I choose Print Preview
from the File menu, that too displays fine. But when I choose Print
Preview from the print window, it displays as it prints - ie shot to
Hell.

I've only just moved to this new Intel iMac and to Os 10.5.1 and I'm
sure this same document printed ok from Excel 2001 running under Os 9.1
previously. It's a big leap I know...

I thought I would trick Excel 2004 (or the Os) by forcing my text to
range right just in case it would print the opposite way but it didn't
work.

Is this a known issue and can I fix it? TIA.

Stan

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Does Leopard do strange things when printing from Excel 2004? I have an
Excel report document which has several lines of text to a cell. When I
print it (to either of my connected printers or to PDF) the text lines
are ranged right instead of left and some characters unexpectedly
disappear outside the frame of the cell.

Of course the document displays fine and when I choose Print Preview
from the File menu, that too displays fine. But when I choose Print
Preview from the print window, it displays as it prints - ie shot to
Hell.

I've only just moved to this new Intel iMac and to Os 10.5.1 and I'm
sure this same document printed ok from Excel 2001 running under Os 9.1
previously. It's a big leap I know...

I thought I would trick Excel 2004 (or the Os) by forcing my text to
range right just in case it would print the opposite way but it didn't
work.

Is this a known issue and can I fix it? TIA.

First make sure your print drivers are up to date.

Second, try changing Print Quality in the File/Page Setup/Page tab.

 

[Stan The Man]

First make sure your print drivers are up to date.

Second, try changing Print Quality in the File/Page Setup/Page tab.

Many thanks - changing Print Quality to 300dpi results in a dramatic
improvement, ie all lines of text are now ranged left when printed.
(Can't see the logic here - so assume it is someone's bug?).

But it doesn't cure everything - I still have the last line of text in
each cell half disappearing out of the cell. I wonder if this is
because I set the row heights manually (I had no choice since "Autofit"
seems to think there is only one line of text)?

Stan

 

[JE McGimpsey]

But it doesn't cure everything - I still have the last line of text in
each cell half disappearing out of the cell. I wonder if this is
because I set the row heights manually (I had no choice since "Autofit"
seems to think there is only one line of text)?

Yes if you set row height manually, you live with the setting.

Autofit should do fine once the print settings are sorted out, except
for merged cells (which are the spawn of the devil and should never ever
be used - not even once).

 

[Stan The Man]

Yes if you set row height manually, you live with the setting.

Autofit should do fine once the print settings are sorted out, except
for merged cells (which are the spawn of the devil and should never ever
be used - not even once).

Awwww, go on, please let me, just once

Stan

 

[Stan The Man]

Yes if you set row height manually, you live with the setting.

Autofit should do fine once the print settings are sorted out, except
for merged cells (which are the spawn of the devil and should never ever
be used - not even once).

Strange happenings with this Excel 2004 document. Following your advice
of two weeks ago, I unmerged some merged cells, set the print quality
to High and changed all rows from manual height to Autofit, albeit with
some manual line breaks in text within each cell. The document seemed
to be fixed: it displayed and printed as intended. But now I have just
reopened the same document and it has gone haywire: text which
previously fitted on one line has reflowed onto two - and the invisible
curse is back, ie although all text appears to fit within all the cells
on screen, the printout (and print preview) show that the text is
disappearing out of the bottom of all cells.

I have rechecked for merged cells, print quality, etc and the document
settings are correct and unchanged. No-one else has opened the document
in the interim. Nothing new has been added to the computer or the
printer.

So how could this spreadsheet open and display differently from the way
it was last seen and saved? And how can I fix it? TIA.

Stan

 

[JE McGimpsey]

So how could this spreadsheet open and display differently from the way
it was last seen and saved? And how can I fix it? TIA.

Well, the obvious answer is "it couldn't!", but obviously it did...

Are you using the same printer? Does changing the Print Quality to
another setting fix the problem?

You might try a full reboot - that forces the system to rebuild the
font caches.

 

[Stan The Man]

Well, the obvious answer is "it couldn't!", but obviously it did...

Are you using the same printer? Does changing the Print Quality to
another setting fix the problem?

You might try a full reboot - that forces the system to rebuild the
font caches.

I got to the bottom of this. The worksheet had been created with the
Tahoma font on a PC and I had maaged to remove Tahoma, along with
hundreds of other 'unwanted' fonts from my new Leopard system in a bid
to reduce clutter. By changing the font to one available locally, the
document displayed and printed properly - and I have now reactivated
Tahoma since it is one of Microsoft's favourites, if not mine.

All of which raises another question: what is the standard behaviour of
Microsoft applications when a document's specified font isn't
available? And would it not be possible to raise an alert when a font
isn't available to the printer?

Simon