Print Alignment in Excel 2004 (11.1.1)with OS10.3.9

[Bion]

I first raised this issue almost a year ago after upgrading to Office
2004. What I see is NOT what I get. Everything looks fine in normal
and page layout screen views, but print preview does not match these,
and the printed copy does not match either the screen views or print
preview. If I use high print quality, all or part of the bottom line
of text in many cells, particularly the longer ones, is cut off. If I
use normal print quality, the left margin of many cells, particularly
the longer ones again, is indented further to the right in successive
rows of wrapped text. I have watched this group and have followed the
advice given others with similar problems -- updating firmware and
drivers, scaling and not scaling, changing other settings etc. Nothing
worked. Following this group since July 2004 has convinced me that,
with so many people having similar problems, there is something screwed
up in Office 2004, or at least in the Excel part of it. It's time for
Microsoft to fix it instead of having the "Experts" on this site trying
to wire around it and make excuses for it.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

It's time for Microsoft to fix it instead of having the "Experts" on
this site trying to wire around it and make excuses for it.

As far as I can tell, you had the one post, 11 months ago, the problem
was intermittent (i.e., not all rows were obscured), and you appeared to
have "fixed" the problem by setting print quality to "Normal" (as
opposed to your now saying "Nothing worked"). In searching the archives
of this group for this calendar year, I haven't seen any similar
problems of cut-off rows, although there's a couple for which going from
Normal to High may have helped the indenting problem. Given the variety
of Office versions, System versions, printers and print drivers that are
being used, hardly a groundswell that would drive MS to investigate,
much less try to fix the problem (assuming, of course, that it's a
problem with XL rather than MacOS or the printer/printer driver),
especially when users report that, for them, setting the print quality
to High solves the problem.

The first problem is, of course, to replicate the behavior.

What version of XL, with what updates, are you using? What print
settings?

Which printer and printer driver(s) (including versions).

Since Office2004 uses OSX print routines, what version of MacOS are you
using (including updates)?

Can you reproduce the problem in any workbook or only certain ones? Is
there any consistency in which rows get cut off and which don't? can you
post a workbook in which the problem occurs to a ftp site? (You're
welcome to email it to me, if you use your above address and compress
the file as either a stuffit or zip archive).

Do you see the problem if you print to PDF?

 

[Brian Gibb]

I too have a problem with the alignment of text in cells that are formatted
with text wrapping. Depending on the font, each successive line is displaced
slightly to the left (Verdura, Helvetica, Times) or to the right (Courrier).
It applies whether the cell has alignment center or left. I tried using
standard quality and draft quality -- no difference.

Interestingly, the normal screen display and the Print Preview menu command
get it right. However, if I select the Print button in Print Preview, the
misalignment occurs. I also see it in the little print layout display in the
Print dialog box, in the Preview display you get when selecting Preview in
the Print dialog box, in a PDF created in the Print dialog (viewed with
either Preview or Acrobat Reader) and of course on paper.

In my case, I found the problem using Excel 11.1.1 in Mac OS 10.4, and
confirmed it by booting into my saved Mac OS 10.3.9 environment.

My printer is a Lexmark Z53, using the driver 2.0.7.

 

[Bion]

Sorry to post & run, but, except at the first of every month (today)
when I need to generate some reports in Excel and have no choice, I
don't have much time to mess with printing problems. Just because I
don't gripe about it on this board every month, please don't assume
that it doesn't happen every month. It does.

My Mac OS and Office 2004 versions are in the title of my June 9 post;
they're the most recent of 10.3 and Office 2004. I check for and
download updates at least weekly. The problem has been the same for
the past year, notwithstanding several updates of both OS 10.3 and
Office 2004 as well as reloading printer drivers and updating printer
firmware.

First, let's rule out OS 10.3 problems. Is Excel written for OS 10.3
or not? If it is, that's what I paid for when I bought it. Making it
fit the OS for which it is sold is Microsoft's job, not mine. I have
installed all available updates of 10.3 -- at that point Excel either
works on 10.3 or it doesn't.

Even though I thought I had "fixed" the problem as indicated in one of
my notes last year, the "fix" only worked for cells having relatively
little wrapped text and relatively small (vertically) worksheets. The
problem happens EVERY time regardless of printer or print settings for
any sheet having cells with lots of wrapped text and running a full
vertical page or more. Whatever is happening seems to "reset" at the
top of each page -- the problem gets worse as you go down the page.
But the first cell on the page is not imune; if it contains quite a bit
of wrapped text, it exhibits the same symptoms.

In answer to your last question, printing from a PDF file yields a
printout identical to the one I get from printing the Excel
spreatsheet. I would like to send you an example, but the sheets
contain confidential client information. If I can find time, I will
generate one that I can send.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Bion]

I have generated a spreadsheet that exhibits the problem I've been
discussing. How do I get it to you?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have generated a spreadsheet that exhibits the problem I've been
discussing. How do I get it to you?

Send it to the email address in this message, from your account, above,
with the file zipped or stuffed. I've temporarily bypassed the filters
that screen out messages with attachments

 

[Brian Gibb]

I have discovered an older spreadsheet with wrapped text that doesn't seem
to show the alignment problem. I printed to a PDF, which displays okay. (My
other file, when printed to a PDF, shows the problem.)

So now, I will have to take some time to see what exactly is different
between the two files.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Karen Thomas]

I also have experienced this exact problem! I found it usually occurs upon
opening an older Excel document. On an all Mac network - and the only
difference being upgrading to Excel 2004 from X - it seems Microsoft has
some issues with compatibility. Was there ever a resolve to this problem
because it would make my life much easier.

Thank you.

 

[DRDurham]

I have seen several cases of this problem. It was reported to Microsoft
Testing for Mac Office last year and was discussed in this user's group
in the past. It sometimes does occur with older files opened in later
versions of Excel for Mac. In each case it seems to be related to
wrapped text in cells when the spreadsheet is zoomed to some percentage
and printed or print previewed. The problem may not occur at all
percentages of zoom. It is a bug, but one with an easy workaround.

The workaround that every one seeing this as a problem should try is to
be sure that the print resolution for such a file is set to "High" not
"Normal". Normal is not normal and is not the default for current
versions of XL and certainly "Draft" could be expected to have
problems. The default print resolution of a new file in XL2004 for Mac
is "High". The print resolution is contained within the file not some
setting in XL and thus could have been set in a file using some earlier
version of Excel that does not have the current 3 Print Quality
settings. To change this setting in XL2004 for Mac, while in the
problem file, select Page Setup from the File menu, select the Page tab
and change the Print Quality to "High". You might also note whether the
zoom is set to other than 100%. I have also alleviated this problem by
changing the percentage, but certainly it is best to simply choose
High.

Please respond to this topic if changing the Print Quality to High does
not resolve your problem.

Dave Durham

 

[Brian Gibb]

Thanks, David, your workaround worked.

I have seen several cases of this problem. It was reported to Microsoft
Testing for Mac Office last year and was discussed in this user's group
in the past. It sometimes does occur with older files opened in later
versions of Excel for Mac. In each case it seems to be related to
wrapped text in cells when the spreadsheet is zoomed to some percentage
and printed or print previewed. The problem may not occur at all
percentages of zoom. It is a bug, but one with an easy workaround.

The workaround that every one seeing this as a problem should try is to
be sure that the print resolution for such a file is set to "High" not
"Normal". Normal is not normal and is not the default for current
versions of XL and certainly "Draft" could be expected to have
problems. The default print resolution of a new file in XL2004 for Mac
is "High". The print resolution is contained within the file not some
setting in XL and thus could have been set in a file using some earlier
version of Excel that does not have the current 3 Print Quality
settings. To change this setting in XL2004 for Mac, while in the
problem file, select Page Setup from the File menu, select the Page tab
and change the Print Quality to "High". You might also note whether the
zoom is set to other than 100%. I have also alleviated this problem by
changing the percentage, but certainly it is best to simply choose
High.

Please respond to this topic if changing the Print Quality to High does
not resolve your problem.

Dave Durham