Word 2003 Display formatting abnormally

[IslandTech]

Word 2003 documents I create on "one particular PC" with one set of margins
look different and pages are formatted (text is moved to a different page)
differently on any other PC with the SAME margin settings. PCs have same
version of MS Office 2003 Professional.

Any ideas how to resolve this will be greatly appreciated.

Note: the same issue arises when the document is opened in different
versions of Office. Issue only arised AFTER I installed an HP ScanJet 5590
flatbed scanner on "authoring PC" in question . It never happened
before...and I've installed all available Office 2003 updates.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

It's likely due to different default printers in each case. Printer metrics
vary and render the identical Word document differently. For consistency,
you'd need to use the identical printer model (maybe even the identical
printer driver) in each case. (You can install a printer drive on a computer
even if that printer is not available.)

 

[IslandTech]

Hi Herb,

The problem is that the issue is also experienced by people who I send the
Word 2003 documents to as attachments. It'll be impractical for all of them
to install the HP ScanJet 5590 drivers on their PCs just to allow the
documents to display correctly on their monitors.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In that case, if maintaining the exact look of the document is vital, you
should be sending it as a PDF.

 

[IslandTech]

Hi Suzanne,

Actually sending the document as a PDF is exactly what I've had to resort to
doing to resolve the issue (for now) since MS Office updates didn't do the
trick. Just thought there was another workaround. Thanks for your help
guys...

 

[Bear]

IslandTech:

If you all have the same tool set, a reasonable compromise might be to set
the default printer to Adobe PDF, and exchange documents with that printer
setting.

Bear