Word Spool32 errors using Print button (office97)

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Everytime I click on the printer icon on the standard toolbar in Word I get an error message spool32 error. But I go to file and choose print. The letters print fine. What is spool32?

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That’s the windows print spooler – sort of a temporary storage space for the output file for your document. It’s controlled by a program named spool32.exe. Both the printer icon and the print menu would be directing print jobs to the spooler. You might try replacing spool32.exe (located in C:WindowsSystem) and seeing if that fixes the problem.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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The Windows 98 print spooler is a miserable disaster. There is a special line of articles at MS Support on troubleshooting spool32 errors, and a spool32 FAQ somewhere on the web maintained by a former MS employee. It’s that bad.

That said, the difference between the Print button and File|Print… is that the button runs a command called FilePrintDefault, while the menu runs the command FilePrint. You can try to get around this by (1) removing the regular button and put up a button for FilePrint instead (Tools|Customize…), or (2) seeing if you can change your defaults in such a way that printing works (e.g., change your default printer in the Printers folder, turn off background printing, etc., whatever works!).

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