Word Print frustrations

[Bill_Pollock]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I'm Operating a New MacBook with up to date Leopard 10.5.4. I've just discarded and reinstalled Office 2008 (including discarding the Preference file). I've reset the Mac print system. I've installed the two Office updates to bring my Office programs up to date.

Here's what's going on:

When I compose a document (for printing) in Word, the document formats exactly as I would expect within Word. I have tried all of the advice I could find within this forum but there's either something else wrong, or I missed something big.

After I compose and format my document in Word I review it in Preview. Here, the preview shows curious breaks where the lowest line of text is cut in half horizontally. Then I close Preview and select Print from the Word/File/Print menu. My Mac is set to "Show Quick Preview." In the Show Quick Preview the document often looks nothing like it is intended to look (and nothing like it does in Word). I have tried Formatting the Document within Word and while the result [still] looks fine in Word it doesn't solve the Print problem. I have also made adjustments in Word Margins and I've created and tried Custom Paper Size with 1" Margins. I have tried several printers including a New HP with current drivers. I've tried saving to Acrobat with the same poor result.

Essentially, while word looks fine in Word, there are major issues in Preview and particularly in Print Result.

In summary, the result I get is that while the document looks good within Word, the printed result pushes the document out to within .2 inches of the [physical] paper margins on both edges and the bottom.

I'd appreciate any work-around anyone may have or even a point in the right direction. I have screen shots of what I've described it that would help.

Thanks

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Bill -

I'm sure you don't want to hear it but printing isn't done by Word or
any other application. It's a service of the OS executed by the printer
driver. The program calling for the service merely hands the content off...
It's then up to the services to render the job properly. The fact that Print
Preview & Preview.app are displaying the anomalies is evidence that the
problem is most likely outside of Word - those views are sent back from the
printer based on what it intends to do with the output.

If you're absolutely sure you have the most current printer drivers
available there may be something that isn't "connecting" as it should. Among
everything you listed I see no reference to repairing disk permissions, so
if you haven't done so - especially in view of all the other changes you've
made - I'd suggest you do that, then restart the Mac & see if conditions
remain unchanged.

BTW - Just because the HP is *new* doesn't mean you have the most current
drivers if you're using what shipped with the printer. By the time a unit
gets boxed, shipped, bought & set up the driver may have been revised
several times. If you haven't done so check the HP site to make sure.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I'm Operating a New MacBook with up to date Leopard 10.5.4. I've just
discarded and reinstalled Office 2008 (including discarding the Preference
file). I've reset the Mac print system. I've installed the two Office updates
to bring my Office programs up to date.

Here's what's going on:

When I compose a document (for printing) in Word, the document formats exactly
as I would expect within Word. I have tried all of the advice I could find
within this forum but there's either something else wrong, or I missed
something big.

After I compose and format my document in Word I review it in Preview. Here,
the preview shows curious breaks where the lowest line of text is cut in half
horizontally. Then I close Preview and select Print from the Word/File/Print
menu. My Mac is set to "Show Quick Preview." In the Show Quick Preview the
document often looks nothing like it is intended to look (and nothing like it
does in Word). I have tried Formatting the Document within Word and while the
result [still] looks fine in Word it doesn't solve the Print problem. I have
also made adjustments in Word Margins and I've created and tried Custom Paper
Size with 1" Margins. I have tried several printers including a New HP with
current drivers. I've tried saving to Acrobat with the same poor result.

Essentially, while word looks fine in Word, there are major issues in Preview
and particularly in Print Result.

In summary, the result I get is that while the document looks good within
Word, the printed result pushes the document out to within .2 inches of the
[physical] paper margins on both edges and the bottom.

I'd appreciate any work-around anyone may have or even a point in the right
direction. I have screen shots of what I've described it that would help.

Thanks

 

[Bill Pollock]

Bob,

I followed your advice and updated my printer drivers. Additionally I reset the Printer System and then repaired Disk Permissions. Also, I tried another printer, a Canon bubble jet printer, after downloading and installing their latest driver from their web site. Still no success.

Here's something I didn't mention in my earlier post, above. The file I am trying to print is text that was cut and pasted from an entourage (2008) email. When I imported the text I Selected All and Selected Clear Formatting from the Style Menu. After Clearing the formating I've reformatted with a Normal Style.

Despite my efforts described in these posts, still no luck with Word. I tried something Apple recommends in their Troubleshooting Printer Problems guide and that is to try the printers from other applications and I've done this with complete success.

Also, and you may not be pleased to read this, I've had success with Apple's Word Processing Software: Pages. However, I prefer Word, I'd like to resolve this problem and I'd welcome your recommendations.

As I mentioned earlier, I can send you screen shots and I can send you a copy of the Word file that is causing me all this difficulty.

Bill

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello again -

A few insertions below;

Bob,

I followed your advice and updated my printer drivers. Additionally I reset
the Printer System and then repaired Disk Permissions. Also, I tried another
printer, a Canon bubble jet printer, after downloading and installing their
latest driver from their web site. Still no success.

No doubt you're following the appropriate procedures, so there must be
something more insidious amongst the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Here's something I didn't mention in my earlier post, above. The file I am
trying to print is text that was cut and pasted from an entourage (2008)
email. When I imported the text I Selected All and Selected Clear Formatting
from the Style Menu. After Clearing the formating I've reformatted with a
Normal Style.

This could definitely be a contributor if not a cause. Was it content in the
email message body or from an attachment? If you have the same content
available try copying it again, then in a new blank doc use Edit> Paste
Special - Unformatted Text to see if you get a more well behaved result.

Despite my efforts described in these posts, still no luck with Word. I tried
something Apple recommends in their Troubleshooting Printer Problems guide and
that is to try the printers from other applications and I've done this with
complete success.

Yeah, that's pretty much a standard troubleshooting step What they
*don't* tell you in the guide is that there are several levels of print
service in OS X & different programs call different levels. Unless you're
trying to print from several programs that all call for equivalent services
it doesn't usually reveal much but it does help narrow things down in some
cases. Otherwise it's like the proverbial apples v. oranges argument & can
waste a lot of paper & ink Unfortunately it can also cause a greater
level of confusion & misunderstanding when someone has "no problem" printing
from TextEdit or Preview but still has the problem with Word, InDesign, or
other more complex apps which demand a higher degree of print performance.

Also, and you may not be pleased to read this, I've had success with Apple's
Word Processing Software: Pages. However, I prefer Word, I'd like to resolve
this problem and I'd welcome your recommendations.

Neither pleases nor displeases - contrary to popular misconception the
correspondents in these news groups are not employed by MS nor do we have
any vested interest in which software you chose to own or use If you
revisit frequently you'll find any number of replies which not only
*suggest* the use of Non-MS product but in some cases even advise *against*
its use. We're just users like everyone else

As I mentioned earlier, I can send you screen shots and I can send you a copy
of the Word file that is causing me all this difficulty.

See what transpires with the above suggestions. If that doesn't make any
headway you might also try the steps here to resolve document corruption:

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DocumentCorruption.html

If there's still no progress I'd be glad to take a look at a copy of the
file. Let me know how you make out & we'll go from there - it's also
possible that one or two others may weigh in on the conversation.

Bill

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Bill Pollock]

Bob,

I read the article on Master Document Recovery and did some experimenting without success. Additionally, I Copied and Pasted the text contents of the troublesome file into TextEdit which is an Application within Mac OS. The result revealed no unusual characters of any kind. I checked it carefully and made sure there weren'tt any trailing characters at the end of the TextEdit document. I then Copied and Pasted the TextEdit text back into a New Blank Document using Edit/Paste/Text Only. Unfortunately, I was rewarded with an identically unacceptable result. Next I went into Format/Document to set/reset margins and this made no difference. Finally, I opened a new template from the Project Gallery - Word Publishing Layout, pasted fresh text and ended up with the same print results.

I'm out of ideas. What am I missing?

Bill

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Bill -

I'm afraid I have no idea why you chose to follow the separate link to
recovering Master Documents. The corruption fixes pertinent to your document
are right there on the page I referred you to - Procedures #1-4 under the
"Uncorrupt your document" topic. Master/Subdocuments are a specific issue
unto themselves, created using the Master Document/Subdocument features of
Word. Unless your document hasn't been fully described it isn't a Master
Document, so it's no surprise that the process specific to recovering one
didn't work for you - you don't have a Master Document , so I'm afraid
you've wasted your time & efforts.

The procedures that are appropriate for this situation are as indicated on
that main page, in the order of ease & effectiveness:

#1 - Use File> Save AS Web Page
#2 - Copy all but last paragraph marker (¶) into a new document
#3 - Open with - not copy to - TextEdit
#4 - Use the Binary method as a last resort if the others don't work.
Corruption can be associated with individual paragraphs, sections &/or
tables... This is a trial & error or process of elimination method used to
isolate the damaged elements. It can be time consuming & must be done
precisely as described in order to be effective. Hopefully you won't have to
get to this 4th option

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Bill_Pollock]

Bob,

I chose to follow the link to Recover Master Documents because the link you sent me brought me to a page that only described the symptoms of a corrupted document! The link to Recover a Master Document provided solutions, which is what I'm really looking for - I'm too clear on the symptoms!

Last evening I tried a few things to assess the results. First, I opened Document Elements and Inserted a Cover Page. The result was the same formatting problem I've been troubled by.

Next, I opened a letter from Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/Media/Templates/Stationary/Personal Letter.

When I viewed the Word Letter in Word/Preview and in Mac's Show Quick Preview and in Mac's print Preview, (drum roll) the letter looked perfect. It printed perfectly too.

Next, I deleted all content of this file (which I had renamed "normal.dotm" hoping to plant this file as the in the User Templates Folder. That didn't work but I'm not sure I tried hard enough.

This morning, I started with a Microsoft Letter Template cleared it out and in Format/Document, after setting margins and saving the result as the Default, it seems like things are back in order.

This has been a major ordeal.

I've been using Word for years over several generations of the software, several computers, several migrations of data, settings, etc....

I wonder if I would have benefited by a "restore defaults" option or something like it. I think I'm a fairly typical casual Word user who appreciates the breadth of features that Word offers. However, it seems to take tooooo long to trouble shoot a problem like the one I've had here.

Well, I think I'm back in business. Thanks for the help.

Bill

 

[Phillip Jones]

I didn't hear that you tried going to Paste > special and choose no
formatting?

Bob,

I read the article on Master Document Recovery and did some experimenting without success. Additionally, I Copied and Pasted the text contents of the troublesome file into TextEdit which is an Application within Mac OS. The result revealed no unusual characters of any kind. I checked it carefully and made sure there weren'tt any trailing characters at the end of the TextEdit document. I then Copied and Pasted the TextEdit text back into a New Blank Document using Edit/Paste/Text Only. Unfortunately, I was rewarded with an identically unacceptable result. Next I went into Format/Document to set/reset margins and this made no difference. Finally, I opened a new template from the Project Gallery - Word Publishing Layout, pasted fresh text and ended up with the same print results.

I'm out of ideas. What am I missing?

Bill

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[Bill]

Follow-up to previous post.

In review, these are the steps I'd recommend to someone who identifies the problem I described where Word showed the desired formatting and layout but when Previewed or Printed the result was different and unsatisfactory.

1. Update you Printer Drivers.

2. Create a New Blank Document by Selecting in the Word File Menu: New Blank Document.

3. Establish your desired Formatting parameters by Selecting in the Word Menu: Format Font. Paragraph, Document. After Selecting Font click on default to make this your new default Font for your next New Blank Document. After Selecting Margins in Document select default to make this your new default Margins for your "New Blank Document." This same methodology might apply to other formatting settings to Set your Default New Blank Document.

4. Turn on the "backwards P" to show the non-printing characters.

5. Copy everything in the troublesome document except the final "backwards P."

6. Paste the copied text into a New Blank Document. The resulting document should reflect the default format settings you created in step 3.

I'm certain this is only one very simple solution to an otherwise complex problem but it worked well for me.

Good luck.

Bill

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Bill,

I've only just seen this thread, because I've been on the road.

I would recommend step 6 to be, rather than to Paste, to choose Edit menu =>
Paste Special => Unformatted Text. That way, only the formatting of the
"receiving" paragraph at the insertion point will be applied to the
pasted-in text.

I use this to paste in heaps of text every day from untrusted sources (which
with my paranoid approach to what people will do with Word means "all
sources"). I won't comment on the other steps as they aren't relevant to my
usual circumstances.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
====================================================

 

[gflu]

I have the very same problem with Word Printing.

1. Documents do not preview, or print, as formatted in Word.
2. This is true for Word 2004 and Word 2008.
3. Print drivers are the most current available from the manufacturer.
4. Formatting weirdness occurs no matter what printer is selected

Generally what happens is that the document margins get blown way out off the sides of the document, in print or preview step.

In the document settings the margins are set to typical 1" or more, but when printed the margins are pushed off the page.

This only happens in Word, it doesn't happen in any other application, so to say that it has nothing to do with Word as mentioned above is unbelievable to me.

When the document is passed from Word to the OS print service, the margin settings are getting screwed. No other Office documents have this problem, nor any Apple document apps. It also happens when you "Save to PDF" from the print dialog. But at that point, the document has already been passed to the OS Print service. This could be an incompatibility between Word and the Leopard Print service, but I don't have an instance of Panther or earlier OS X to test from.

The only thing I've been able to do is to crank the margins WAY in on the document before I send it to a printer. This is somewhat unpredictable, but I can manage to get all the text on the page.

Some screen shots of the issue.
<http://gallery.me.com/fluitt#100221>

 

[gflu]

I may have found a clue. My wife just informed me that "the issue" is not happening when printing from our old iMac. The iMac is on OS X 10.5.4 just like my MBP. Testing Office 2004 on both machines, the Print dialog looks different. On the iMac 10.5.4. there is no embedded preview window. On the MBP 10.5.4 there is an embedded preview with a "show quick preview" button.

On the iMac, the machine that prints just fine, it looks like this:
<http://gallery.me.com/fluitt#100221/Picture-201&bgcolor=black>

On the MBP, the machine that freaks out the Margins, it looks like this, with the "show quick preview" button:
<http://gallery.me.com/fluitt#100221/Picture-204&bgcolor=black>

It's not a print driver that is determining which version of the Print Dialog is displayed because it doesn't matter what printer is chosen, the print dialog is always the same. It's something else, in the OS that determines which of these print dialogs are displayed?

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi gflu -

I truly don't mean to provoke you but don't you think it a little weird
that the only copies of *both* Office 2004 (which has been on the market for
more than 4 years) AND 2008 exhibiting this behavior just *happened* to wind
up in your possession on your Mac? You certainly strike me a being someone
who's far too competent to be *that* unlucky

Everything you offer to refute the fact that Word itself isn't at fault is
explained elsewhere in this very thread. If you read it from start to finish
& comply with the suggestions already offered there's no reason why you
shouldn't have the same successful outcome that Bill had.

Start by making sure that OS X & Office are fully updated (10.5.4 for
Leopard, 11.5 & 12.1.1 for Office 2004 & Office 2008 respectively). Repair
Disk Permissions using Apple's Disk Utility or the 3rd party utility of your
choice & restart your Mac.

If this is happening with a specific document it is a sure sign that the
document itself is corrupt in some way - but that's discussed here as well.
I've marked the other issues addressed he with [*] in the quoting of your
message below:

I have the very same problem with Word Printing.

1. Documents do not preview, or print, as formatted in Word.[*]
2. This is true for Word 2004 and Word 2008.
3. Print drivers are the most current available from the manufacturer.
4. Formatting weirdness occurs no matter what printer is selected[*]

Generally what happens is that the document margins get blown way out off the
sides of the document, in print or preview step.

In the document settings the margins are set to typical 1" or more, but when
printed the margins are pushed off the page.

This only happens in Word, it doesn't happen in any other application[*], so to
say that it has nothing to do with Word as mentioned above is unbelievable to
me.[*]

When the document is passed from Word to the OS print service, the margin
settings are getting screwed[*]. No other Office documents have this problem, nor
any Apple document apps[*]. It also happens when you "Save to PDF" from the print
dialog[*]. But at that point, the document has already been passed to the OS
Print service. This could be an incompatibility between Word and the Leopard
Print service, but I don't have an instance of Panther or earlier OS X to test
from.[*]

The only thing I've been able to do is to crank the margins WAY in on the
document before I send it to a printer. This is somewhat unpredictable, but I
can manage to get all the text on the page.

Some screen shots of the issue.
<http://gallery.me.com/fluitt#100221>

If you follow the advice diligently & still have a problem we'll be more
than willing to work with you to get it resolved, but please don't tell us
that the information offered is wrong when it's been proven to be right
If it doesn't work for you it means that your circumstances are *different*
in some way, but that doesn't mean that it's the program at fault.

Word itself has absolutely nothing to do with the manner in which OS X
print services & the printer/driver handle the data. It is honestly as
simple as that. I have both 2004 & 2008 running on 2 different Macs in 2
different versions of OS X - most of the regulars in this group are involved
with more than that - and have *never* had a printing issue that was
traceable to the Office software itself (with the exception of some font
issues when 2008 was first introduced). Many of those issues weren't wholly
attributable to Office & were addressed in the first update, SP1 took care
of the rest, but problems like you describe simply aren't attributable to
the applications - Office or otherwise.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[gflu]

CyberTaz- Nothing provocative about your "unlucky" statement, cause it made no sense. Yes I have the old version and the new version of office under different licenses, having just installed 2008 a couple of days ago. The issue existed under 2004, and continues under 2008 as well. I don't get your undertone.

I did read through the entire thread, completed all the suggestions (updates, disk permissions, etc. ) with zero change in the condition.

I don't know what thread you're reading, but Bill P. did not arrive at any solution after going through all the suggestions. Opening a template file and replacing text is not a solution, it's desperate work around. If you can't create a new document, and print it, well, I'd say it's pretty seriously broken. Please don't suggest that the information provided has been "proven right". This remains an open issue.

I am not suggesting this is a Word problem, but clearly there is some disconnect between Word and the OS print services. All other Office apps are printing fine, as well as the Mac iLife apps, Open Office, Star Office, virtually everything.

I am investigating the difference between the two Macs that are on the same OS level, but are displaying different Print Dialog boxes (one with embedded preview, one without). On the one without the embedded preivew, printing works fine. The others (3), printing of any Word document on any printer, on any network, does this margin change.

 

[John McGhie]

CyberTaz- Nothing provocative about your "unlucky" statement, cause it made no
sense.

What he was saying is that Word works fine all over the world, even in your
office, except on the computer you installed. Made perfect sense to me

I am investigating the difference between the two Macs that are on the same OS
level, but are displaying different Print Dialog boxes (one with embedded
preview, one without). On the one without the embedded preivew, printing works
fine. The others (3), printing of any Word document on any printer, on any
network, does this margin change.

It's a printer driver issue. Word instructs the operating system to use a
specific printer driver. The preview is generated by the printer driver (as
is the print job). In turn, the Print Dialog Box is generated by OS X: Word
doesn't know anything about it.

On one Mac, the printer driver does not have two-way communication and
cannot generate a preview. But it prints. On the other hand, the printer
driver does have two-way communication and does generate a preview, but it's
not connected to the printer.

Other applications on that machine are selecting a different PPD (PostScript
Printer Definition) and they are printing.

When you go to the File menu in Word and drop-down the "Printer" drop list,
what do you see offered as printers? Wouldn't be the first time someone has
come in here and chosen the 'Fax' variation offered by their printer driver,
then wondered why no ink comes out...

The fact that you are complaining about margins is a classic sign that the
printer driver Word is trying to use knows nothing about the paper actually
loaded in the printer, and therefore is not communicating with that printer.

Hope this helps

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Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello again -

Please see the interjections below;

I don't know what thread you're reading, but Bill P. did not arrive at any
solution after going through all the suggestions.

Well, according to his last two posts, yes, he did... At least that's what I
get from "Well, I think I'm back in business. Thanks for the help." & the
fact that he hasn't posted back since then other than to share his variation
on one of the standard troubleshooting processes.

Opening a template file and
replacing text is not a solution, it's desperate work around.

It is the solution if a corrupt document is the cause of the problem. In
this case it was a corrupt Normal template. That's why he was successful
with a doc based on a different template. He then proceeded to update his
Normal using the settings in the new document... Not the preferred way to
get it done, but it worked out OK for him. Both procedures were included
among the first responses to his original post.

If you can't
create a new document, and print it, well, I'd say it's pretty seriously
broken.

Certainly *something* is, but it's not the program. If it were, the problem
more likely would be in getting the new document created in the first place.

Please don't suggest that the information provided has been "proven
right". This remains an open issue.

Perhaps it does, but the unfortunate thing is that it doesn't have to be.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac