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Multiple print copy misformatted

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by mary.schingeck

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Earlier this year we converted from Office95 to Office2000.One user has spreadsheets, graphs and commentary that was created in Office95 that is printed every month for the Board of Directors.He uses a color printer and will print 11 copies at a time. About 2 to 3 will print fine then copies come out with letters missing, i.e., s and u missing. Dollar signs have changed to the greater then symbol. We also had one copy that looked like someone was on drugs while typing, nothing made sense and everything was a symbol. Then there are about 3 more copies that have no problems. If printed on a black/white printer there is no problem but he wants them printed on a color printer.The color printer is an HP 4500 and no one else has any problemsprinting to this particular printer. I'm at a complete loss as to what else to do. I already tried newer drives and just doing the "Save As" does not correct the problem, I have copied each tab into a new worksheet and it helped for one month now he is having the same problem and wants me to come up with an action plan on what else I'm going to try. Help Please! What else can I do besides cry!

16 replies

by bill cassada

It's a font issue I think. We had a 4500 in Europe and had very similar issues. We had created a brochure in MS Publisher and converted it to PDF. After several calls to HP we finally had to switch fonts. Turns out that font substitution plays a role (i.e. for exmaple when Sans Serif isn't avail it uses Arial). Once we got the fonts resolved it worked fine. I'm not clear on exactly how we did it, though as it was about two years ago and HP was VERY, I mean V-E-R-Y vague with the help they provided.

by bill cassada

It's a font issue I think. We had a 4500 in Europe and had very similar issues. We had created a brochure in MS Publisher and converted it to PDF. After several calls to HP we finally had to switch fonts. Turns out that font substitution plays a role (i.e. for exmaple when Sans Serif isn't avail it uses Arial). Once we got the fonts resolved it worked fine. I'm not clear on exactly how we did it, though as it was about two years ago and HP was VERY, I mean V-E-R-Y vague with the help they provided.

by johnm

This can be a tough one, since it involves network printing and occurred right after an upgrade. How about these to narrow it down?
(1) E-mail the files to another user who has no know problems printing to that printer. Run them from there. If they print OK, the problem is in the original user's computer or network connection. If problem moves with the file, it is probably not in the network connection but is probably in the first user's computer.
(2) When it won't interfere with business, attach the printer directly to the user's computer, set up the printer as the default, and try to print the file that way. If the file prints properly locally, the problem is the network connection.
(2a) An alternative to (2), move the computer to another user's network drop and try to print from there (choice depends on which is physically easier to move - printer or computer).
(3) If the problem is confirmed to be in the computer, I'd reload Office as a first choice and the OS (for the printer drivers) as the second choice.

by johnm

Bill is also right about fonts being a possible problem. If the file won't print from a different machine, fonts unique to that document could be a problem, but I'd have expected those to be more consistent and not affect only the one printer.

by tmaclennan

I suggest dialing down the graphics settings. Most print output looks fine at 150 or even 75 dpi, while most print driver installs default you to the best dpi setting available. To drop your graphics print output from 600 dpi to 300 dpi results in a75% file size reduction (300x300=90000 vs. 600x600=360000). This reduction in size can really help with busy documents.

by tmaclennan

I suggest dialing down the graphics settings. Most print output looks fine at 150 or even 75 dpi, while most print driver installs default you to the best dpi setting available. To drop your graphics print output from 600 dpi to 300 dpi results in a75% file size reduction (300x300=90000 vs. 600x600=360000). This reduction in size can really help with busy documents.

by saf40

besides fonts, remove the printer drivers and reinstall them.go into control panel,printer,right click to remove printer.
also rename the unidrv.dll then install printer driver.

by subscribed

Try the following printer settings (print quality tab)
print raster
print as photographic images.

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