Margins printing slightly off (Word 2002 SP2)

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I have a user that is preparing a document for a very finicky court. The document is set to 1.5″ for both left and right margins. When you measure the printed result the margins are off by 1 letter. However, the margins are fine when you print the same document to a post script printer. The user would like to know why this is happening. Although I highly suspect it’s caused by a difference in the way different printer drivers handle data, but I do not know for sure and the user would like a more specific answer. Does anyone know what causes this?

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It may be affected by the compatibility settings. Look at Tools/Options/Compatibility/Use printer metrics to lay out document. I copied this from the MS site & added a description:

>>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. If you DON’T have Tools/Compatibility/Use printer metrics to lay out document checked (the default) then print preview always uses the default printer. If you DO have that option checked, then Word uses the printer’s printer driver & you can see the difference in the document & in print preview.<<

As an aside, it's nice to know that our courts aren't so overworked that they don't have time to measure margins to the letter.

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It may be affected by the compatibility settings. Look at Tools/Options/Compatibility/Use printer metrics to lay out document. I copied this from the MS site & added a description:

>>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. If you DON’T have Tools/Compatibility/Use printer metrics to lay out document checked (the default) then print preview always uses the default printer. If you DO have that option checked, then Word uses the printer’s printer driver & you can see the difference in the document & in print preview.<<

As an aside, it's nice to know that our courts aren't so overworked that they don't have time to measure margins to the letter.

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If the misbehaving driver is PCL 5 or 6, it could just be bad programming. After spending many evenings debugging print problems with those drivers, we just don’t use them any more!

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Thanks for the info. Actually, the printers are either HP 4000 or 4100’s, and we are using the PCL 5e driver. We haven’t been able to find another driver that works as well – even though it is very buggy! The 5e is the only one we have found that shows the paper type in Word’s page setup. What are you using instead??

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We use the PostScript printer driver. I guess our Paper Types are generic names like Tray 1, Tray 2, Manual, and so forth. Most people seem able to remember that Tray

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We use the PostScript printer driver. I guess our Paper Types are generic names like Tray 1, Tray 2, Manual, and so forth. Most people seem able to remember that Tray

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Thanks for the info. Actually, the printers are either HP 4000 or 4100’s, and we are using the PCL 5e driver. We haven’t been able to find another driver that works as well – even though it is very buggy! The 5e is the only one we have found that shows the paper type in Word’s page setup. What are you using instead??

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If the misbehaving driver is PCL 5 or 6, it could just be bad programming. After spending many evenings debugging print problems with those drivers, we just don’t use them any more!

Reply | Quote