Text hidden when printing merged cells

[Critter]

Hello --

We are having a recurring problem with tables in Word 2000. At time
we need to create tables that merge certain cells within only som
columns. For example, three cells in one column are merged, while th
cells they line up with in the next column are still separate.

These look fine on the screen, but when printed, sometimes the text i
the merged cells is cut off, as if it is all trying to fit in the to
cell.

We have tried checking cell margins, row heights, text wrappin
on/off...not sure what else to try.

Anyone know why this is happening and what we can do about it?

Thanks!
Christ

 

[Jezebel]

Some table structures are simply too complex for some printer drivers. Word
2000 tables are a rather ugly compromise: as a matter of MS policy, they are
intended to work both in print and as HTML for web pages; the result is a
little unsatisfactory in both respects.

Some workarounds you might try --

1) If you're printing to a PostScript printer, try a non-PostScript printer;
and vice versa.
2) If you have the full version of Acrobat, create a PDF and print that.
3) Use embedded tables rather than split/merged cells.

 

[Chad DeMeyer]

If none of your merged cells has a height greater than will fit on a single
page, the following workaround that I have used may work for you:

For each vertically merged cell, select all but the entire rows except for
the last and Format>Paragraph>Line and Page Breaks>Keep with next. This
keeps a verically merged cell from breaking across pages, which is what Word
seemed to be stumbling over when it happened to me.

Regards,
Chad

 

[Critter]

Thanks for the responses.

My table problem, when it does occur (which is not every time) occur
no matter what printer I print to (I don't have a lot of choice
because it is an 11x17 paper size), and it also occurs when I print t
PDF (which is our final output format for our outside print shop).

I already have "keep with next" on the rows, because the tables ar
fairly small and in a two-column format, so I want to keep them fro
breaking at the end of a column.

The embedded table solution doesn't really work for my most recen
problem table.

Any idea whether I might have better luck with Word 2003?

Thanks!
Christ