Invisible printing – shows in print preview (XP)

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Dear Loungers,

I have now had this problem a few times, previously it has “resolved” itself which led me to believ that Word/memory had got screwed up. Has anyone else encountered this:

Document is a Woprd document with headers and footers, it contains tables and has a format of portrait, landscape, portrait (although other examples this was not true. On print preview it looks great, on print it prints selectively and not always consistently, the pages all exist but it like printed in invisible ink, although in all cases the headers and footers are printed successfully. Strangely the same thing is true if a print to PDF, the PDF file looks graet but it prints only partially and not exactly as the word file.
I have tried copy and paste to new document in avriety of ways to no avail.

Any ideas?

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One possible cause of this is if you have text formatted as “Hidden”. Settings in Tools > Options allow you to specify whether hidden text is displayed and whether it is printed, these are two different settings.

Another possibility is if your text is in text boxes or another graphic and you have disabled Tools > Options > Print > Drawing Objects.

StuartR

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One possible cause of this is if you have text formatted as “Hidden”. Settings in Tools > Options allow you to specify whether hidden text is displayed and whether it is printed, these are two different settings.

Another possibility is if your text is in text boxes or another graphic and you have disabled Tools > Options > Print > Drawing Objects.

StuartR

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We have been having a similar problem. Some documents look fine on the screen, preview okay, but if you print (from preview) the bottom 2.76″ are blanked out, and will no longer print. If you try to go to Page Setup to change the margins, you get a message that you are trying to print beyond the margins, do you want to Fix. If you choose fix, the bottom margin changes to 2.76.” It seems like Word is changing the paper size. We have had this occur with Word 97 and XP.

There is no hidden text or text boxes.

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There have been threads on this before and I can’t remember the answer. I realize this is a tough thing to describe, but could you try a few (more) searches and see if any relevant threads turn up?

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Do a “Select All” and then Format, Paragraph and change ALL margins to what they should be. All you need is one paragraph with blown margin(s) to get this problem.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Do a “Select All” and then Format, Paragraph and change ALL margins to what they should be. All you need is one paragraph with blown margin(s) to get this problem.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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There have been threads on this before and I can’t remember the answer. I realize this is a tough thing to describe, but could you try a few (more) searches and see if any relevant threads turn up?

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Not positive, but I have a vague recollection that this might ocurr if you have Tools/Options/Print tab/Allow A/4 Letter paper resizing. That option should be off.

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Thanks, Phil.

I do recall that the Allow A/4 Letter was checked. Isn’t that one of MS defaults? Why would it cause problems only some of the time?

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See if you still have the problem with the A4 option off. Also, take a look at Tools/Options/Compatibility & scroll for “Use printer metrics to lay out document”. Change that option. I only have one printer, so I keep forgetting which setting on the option does what.

Microsoft describes it as:
“If this option is selected, Word uses the information from the printer driver that is installed as in some earlier versions of Word. If this option is disabled (default), Word use build-in metrics to lay out the document. This means your document looks the same no matter what printer driver is installed.”

But I keep forgetting which way makes some documents print differently than Print preview.

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Yes, we still have the problem after unchecking A4 option.

The “Use printer metrics to lay out document” option is unchecked by default on our machines. We will see if checking this option does anything for us.

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Yes, we still have the problem after unchecking A4 option.

The “Use printer metrics to lay out document” option is unchecked by default on our machines. We will see if checking this option does anything for us.

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Thanks, Phil.

I do recall that the Allow A/4 Letter was checked. Isn’t that one of MS defaults? Why would it cause problems only some of the time?

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We also have been having this problem–not on a consistent basis–just whenever it feels like it. I have tried the option of 1) checking all paragraphs to make sure none of the paragraphs have odd +indents or -indents and 2) making sure tools-options-printAllow A/4 is selected. None of these options seem to correct the situation. We have had this problem until we upgraded to Word 2002. If this would happen on a consistent basis–we might be able to find a concrete answer.

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Don’t know whether or not your problem is solved, but MS has two very good Knowledge Base articles re. printing problems. You might want to have a look at Article 321611 and Article 290932 and see if you can eliminate or isolate what is causing this problem.

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Thanks, John.

It will take us awhile to go through all the information in those MS KBA documents. Hopefully we will find an answer.

We have tried deleting the printer and re-attaching the network printer. This will let us print the document by the next time we try to print or preview, the bottom of the pages are missing again.

We will probably try renaming the Normal, as our next line of attach.

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Can you attach one of the problem documents to a post here (after first removing any sensitive material)? Maybe there’s something about the document that one of us could see.

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I’ve attached a test document. On my system everything works as it should. The administrative assistant is having problems with this document.

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When you say the assistant has problems, I’m assuming that you mean the bottom of the page was cut off. I was able to print this document in Word 2000 with no problems, but I have only one printer. Do both of you print from the same printer & do you have the same printer drivers?

Try UNchecking the compatibility option “Use printer metrics to lay out document” & see if there is any difference.

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There are currently three people having the cut off printing problems. They all print to different printers, but all print to HP printer models. Two people and myself print using the same print drivers (or supposed to be the same). The admin assistant is the most critical of the people having problems, because it’s her job to make sure the documents look good when printed. The document that was attached is the latest document to have issues. The admin has issues but no one else has problems with the document, as you found.

We usually have all our computers set up by the same person and to meet our specifications for software set up. I have emailed the admin to see if the “Use printer…” option is checked (we would not have it checked in our software set up). The admin is printing to a unique printer. We only have a few of that model. Microsoft’s support implies that our issue with printing is print drivers. We have deleted printers and reselected the network printers, which seems to help for awhile.

I believe that if the two people using the same drivers print to another printer, they do not have the problem. The admin is in a small office in another time zone. She only has one printer available.

I know that I have given you more information than you wanted, but I am at a loss for a solution. Any other ideas?

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I don’t know is this is related to your problem, but today one of our users converted a Word 97 document to PDF (with Adobe’s PDF Writer) and found out that about half a page of text was missing. After taking a close look, I discovered that the problem was caused by unprintable characters used as bullets in a 4-paragraph part of the document. Correcting this solved her problem.

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Thanks for the info, Jan.

I checked the original document and don’t find any unusual characters. The first page is a letter on letterhead (graphic logo in header); the second page has a table at the top and another at the bottom; and the third page is landscape with a table.

I converted the document to a PDF and it was fine.

Don’t we just love a mystery?

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I don’t know is this is related to your problem, but today one of our users converted a Word 97 document to PDF (with Adobe’s PDF Writer) and found out that about half a page of text was missing. After taking a close look, I discovered that the problem was caused by unprintable characters used as bullets in a 4-paragraph part of the document. Correcting this solved her problem.

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I’ve been away today, so forgive the late reply. Other than driver issues, I don’t have any other ideas. You might check with HP to see if they’ve had these issues with some of their drivers. You can go to their site & download the latest drivers.
Cheers,

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Thanks, Phil.

We are using the latest drivers, which may have started the problem. We will keep looking for updates to the HP drivers. At this point drivers appear to be the like cause of our issues.

Thanks to all for your input.

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Thanks, Phil.

We are using the latest drivers, which may have started the problem. We will keep looking for updates to the HP drivers. At this point drivers appear to be the like cause of our issues.

Thanks to all for your input.

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I’ve been away today, so forgive the late reply. Other than driver issues, I don’t have any other ideas. You might check with HP to see if they’ve had these issues with some of their drivers. You can go to their site & download the latest drivers.
Cheers,

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There are currently three people having the cut off printing problems. They all print to different printers, but all print to HP printer models. Two people and myself print using the same print drivers (or supposed to be the same). The admin assistant is the most critical of the people having problems, because it’s her job to make sure the documents look good when printed. The document that was attached is the latest document to have issues. The admin has issues but no one else has problems with the document, as you found.

We usually have all our computers set up by the same person and to meet our specifications for software set up. I have emailed the admin to see if the “Use printer…” option is checked (we would not have it checked in our software set up). The admin is printing to a unique printer. We only have a few of that model. Microsoft’s support implies that our issue with printing is print drivers. We have deleted printers and reselected the network printers, which seems to help for awhile.

I believe that if the two people using the same drivers print to another printer, they do not have the problem. The admin is in a small office in another time zone. She only has one printer available.

I know that I have given you more information than you wanted, but I am at a loss for a solution. Any other ideas?

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When you say the assistant has problems, I’m assuming that you mean the bottom of the page was cut off. I was able to print this document in Word 2000 with no problems, but I have only one printer. Do both of you print from the same printer & do you have the same printer drivers?

Try UNchecking the compatibility option “Use printer metrics to lay out document” & see if there is any difference.

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I’ve attached a test document. On my system everything works as it should. The administrative assistant is having problems with this document.

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Can you attach one of the problem documents to a post here (after first removing any sensitive material)? Maybe there’s something about the document that one of us could see.

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Thanks, John.

It will take us awhile to go through all the information in those MS KBA documents. Hopefully we will find an answer.

We have tried deleting the printer and re-attaching the network printer. This will let us print the document by the next time we try to print or preview, the bottom of the pages are missing again.

We will probably try renaming the Normal, as our next line of attach.

Reply | Quote

Don’t know whether or not your problem is solved, but MS has two very good Knowledge Base articles re. printing problems. You might want to have a look at Article 321611 and Article 290932 and see if you can eliminate or isolate what is causing this problem.

Reply | Quote

We also have been having this problem–not on a consistent basis–just whenever it feels like it. I have tried the option of 1) checking all paragraphs to make sure none of the paragraphs have odd +indents or -indents and 2) making sure tools-options-printAllow A/4 is selected. None of these options seem to correct the situation. We have had this problem until we upgraded to Word 2002. If this would happen on a consistent basis–we might be able to find a concrete answer.

Reply | Quote

Not positive, but I have a vague recollection that this might ocurr if you have Tools/Options/Print tab/Allow A/4 Letter paper resizing. That option should be off.

Reply | Quote

We have been having a similar problem. Some documents look fine on the screen, preview okay, but if you print (from preview) the bottom 2.76″ are blanked out, and will no longer print. If you try to go to Page Setup to change the margins, you get a message that you are trying to print beyond the margins, do you want to Fix. If you choose fix, the bottom margin changes to 2.76.” It seems like Word is changing the paper size. We have had this occur with Word 97 and XP.

There is no hidden text or text boxes.

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Dear Loungers,

I roiginally raised this problem and the discusison was a useful pointer for all sorts of things. Amazingly our problem disappeared without anything being done so I could not persue the suggetsions. Anyway this has resurfaced and I cannot fix it this is the situation:

Normal A4 document it contains tables, some form field (check boxes) and some borders. It has previously printed successfully and although recently updated it was only words nothing in terms of layout. The “invisible” text varies so it is inconsistent. The document will print successfully on a different printer?! And the probelm exists with other types of document which suggests that it isn’t Word but something generic. I have tried the folowing:

reboot both the local PC and the server
re-install the printer driver & usinhg the latest

unchecked the A4 resizing
reset all margins (although they looked OK)
used the printer metrics (compatibility)
none of the text is or ever has been hidden (anyway I print hidden)
have checked the MS Kwbase

since it isn’t just word it must be either printer or operating system problem. on connecting theprinter to another machine and installing latest drivers we can print the documents successfully. i don’t know what we’ve proved so far more than it’s trans-application, not the driver, possibly my machine – the printer is attached directly to mine and shared, can’t think it’s the printer of driver as they wouldn’t selectively and inconsistently print or not whole lines.

I think I’m drowning here any ideas?
liz

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Dear Loungers,

I roiginally raised this problem and the discusison was a useful pointer for all sorts of things. Amazingly our problem disappeared without anything being done so I could not persue the suggetsions. Anyway this has resurfaced and I cannot fix it this is the situation:

Normal A4 document it contains tables, some form field (check boxes) and some borders. It has previously printed successfully and although recently updated it was only words nothing in terms of layout. The “invisible” text varies so it is inconsistent. The document will print successfully on a different printer?! And the probelm exists with other types of document which suggests that it isn’t Word but something generic. I have tried the folowing:

reboot both the local PC and the server
re-install the printer driver & usinhg the latest

unchecked the A4 resizing
reset all margins (although they looked OK)
used the printer metrics (compatibility)
none of the text is or ever has been hidden (anyway I print hidden)
have checked the MS Kwbase

since it isn’t just word it must be either printer or operating system problem. on connecting theprinter to another machine and installing latest drivers we can print the documents successfully. i don’t know what we’ve proved so far more than it’s trans-application, not the driver, possibly my machine – the printer is attached directly to mine and shared, can’t think it’s the printer of driver as they wouldn’t selectively and inconsistently print or not whole lines.

I think I’m drowning here any ideas?
liz

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Liz, what printer is it, and what are the versions of Windows on the machines that do and don’t print the document successfully?

Also, I’m confused because two people have described problems in this thread. Are parts of your document not printing (big1’s problem) or is miscellaneous stuff appearing on your printouts?

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John,

The printer is an HP 1300 – I don’t like it it is a “domestic” printer really but somehow this office has it – its connected directly to my machine which runs Windows XP and also it is shared with others through the network, they also run Windows XP. And , yes, they sometimes get the problem too.

My problem is invisible printing not spurious additions. It feels like a driver problem but we have the latest so I’m stumped – in fact I am trying to get it replaced with a better quality printer.

thank you………………. liz

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There are two types of drivers, PCL 6 and PostScript, both of which are available for the LaserJet 1300 (maybe at this link, if it works for you). If you have tried both, perhaps there are some configuration details you can change, but if not, please try the “other” one and see if it works any better.

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There are two types of drivers, PCL 6 and PostScript, both of which are available for the LaserJet 1300 (maybe at this link, if it works for you). If you have tried both, perhaps there are some configuration details you can change, but if not, please try the “other” one and see if it works any better.

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John,

The printer is an HP 1300 – I don’t like it it is a “domestic” printer really but somehow this office has it – its connected directly to my machine which runs Windows XP and also it is shared with others through the network, they also run Windows XP. And , yes, they sometimes get the problem too.

My problem is invisible printing not spurious additions. It feels like a driver problem but we have the latest so I’m stumped – in fact I am trying to get it replaced with a better quality printer.

thank you………………. liz

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Liz, what printer is it, and what are the versions of Windows on the machines that do and don’t print the document successfully?

Also, I’m confused because two people have described problems in this thread. Are parts of your document not printing (big1’s problem) or is miscellaneous stuff appearing on your printouts?

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To: Lizat, Maybe your problem is a lack of printer memory. The printer is just not able to process very complicated pages that require more printer memory. If you change the print quality, say from 600 dpi to 300 dpi, which means the printer receives less info, does this fix the problem on the problem pages?

I also agree with the previous observation that there are too many different problems in this thread. ….J. Till

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J.

That I could diagnose, I think, but this is a problem with documents taht have previous printed fine, very small and very large.

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To: Lizat, Maybe your problem is a lack of printer memory. The printer is just not able to process very complicated pages that require more printer memory. If you change the print quality, say from 600 dpi to 300 dpi, which means the printer receives less info, does this fix the problem on the problem pages?

I also agree with the previous observation that there are too many different problems in this thread. ….J. Till

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