Text all squashed up, but how?

[AlanTerrill]

In Word 2002, I've been called to two users who have somehow managed to type
a sentence and it appears on the screen as a single jumble of characters, ie
all the letters in the sentence are sitting on top of each other. If a new
line is started, as you type the status bar says line 2, column 36 etc but
the characters in the typing area don't move to the right, they just keep
appearing on top of each other. Margins are set to normal values, but the
characters can't access the rest of the screen. Opening a new document does
the same thing. If Word is closed down and reopened , typing goes back to
normal behaviour.
Does anyone know why this might occur?

 

[JoAnn Paules [MSFT MVP]]

Check the size of the font against the line spacing.

 

[AlanTerrill]

Line spacing is 1, font normal 12pt. I can't see how changing either of these
would have this effect. The text is being squashed ina horizontal direction,
not a vertical one. I'm getting a single unreadable character at the
beginning of each line on a page, but the rows are still separated by a gap.
Its as though the right margin has been made enormous and then word wrap has
been turned off.

 

[Dave Johnson]

Are you running any programs that would install a macro into word like adobe,
Hot Docs or anything like that? Is it happening all the time or just once in
a while to different people?

 

[AlanTerrill]

Nothing I'm aware of -we just use the Office suite. It's happening to just
two people and just once in a while.

 

[Dave Johnson]

i have been dealing with a similar problem also for some time now i have come
accross many different quick fixes but not a solution. A couple of the things
that people have told me are that it can be caused by the integration with
adobe, but the one thing that i think mey be causing it is a printer driver
make sure you have the latest printer driver and if you do then you might
want to down grade to an older printer driver and see if that takes care of
it. Also see what type of text you are using i found that the problem always
happens with times new roman and while the text is all smashed i highlight it
and then change it to areial or something like that and it seems to stop the
problem temporarily. You can also check Tools>Options>Compatibility and make
sure that there is nothing weird selected in that menu. I hope any of these
options can help you.

 

[AlanTerrill]

Thanks Dave, I'll try that next time this happens.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Alan,

What make and model of printer driver are you using?

Do you have the MS Remove Hidden Data Office Add-in
installed?

If you use File=>Print and switch/switch-back
or reaffirm the properties of the selected driver that
seems to help. If that works then close Word and
use Start=>Search to locate and delete files found
with the search string:
~$*.*;*.tmp
then restart Word

What appears to be happening is that
Word (which relies on the printer driver for page layout
information) loses track, or misreads, the driver due
to something in temp files.

=========
In Word 2002, I've been called to two users who have somehow managed to type
a sentence and it appears on the screen as a single jumble of characters, ie
all the letters in the sentence are sitting on top of each other. If a new
line is started, as you type the status bar says line 2, column 36 etc but
the characters in the typing area don't move to the right, they just keep
appearing on top of each other. Margins are set to normal values, but the
characters can't access the rest of the screen. Opening a new document does
the same thing. If Word is closed down and reopened , typing goes back to
normal behaviour.
Does anyone know why this might occur?>>