Two pages become three (Word 2000 (9.0.6926 SP-3)

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My computer’s operating system is Windows XP Home & I am using Office Suite 2000 Premium.

I wonder if Phil Rabichow will have the answer to this one? {8;-))

I produce a monthly circular for a social group on two pages. Page one has a table the size of just less than the printing margins with two columns dividing the table one-quarter & three-quarters. The one-quarter column has a logo & the names, addresses etc of the chairman, secretary, treasurer etc of the group. The three-quarters width column contains formatted text of meeting notices etc & tables in which information about forthcoming events is set out. The edges of the text & the tables are clearly within that column. At the bottom of the page there is a page break so that the full-page table will not continue onto page two.

The second page is mainly text in paragraphs. There is no main table & a shallow table of less width than the width between the printing margins gives anniversary information.

On my computer the document displays as two pages. It is distributed 2/3 rds by email & as 1/3rd as printed copies on two sides of one sheet of A4 paper. I do not experience any printing problems.

Several of the email recipients complain that when they open the file it displays on their computer as three or even four pages. For example the computer of one of these recipients uses Windows XP Home with Office 2000 Professional with no Service Packs installed.

Can anyone suggest an explanation for the behaviour as described of my file on certain other computers? My troubled recipients & I would dearly love to know why.

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It might be due to different printers. Inkjet printers generally have a much larger non-printable bottom margin than laser printers. If you designed the document to fit exactly on 2 pages on a laser printer, the pages are too long for an inkjet printer, so one or both of the pages would become two pages when viewed on a system where the default printer is an inkjet printer.

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Hans,

Couldn’t the inkjet printer owners use the “Shrink to Fit” option in the Print Preview section of Word to make the documents fit on 2 pages ??

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Probably an excellent idea, but it’s an extra step for the user.

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Turning to the 3rd and 4th pages involves Two extra steps for the user.

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Thank you for your reply.

As it so happens we both use the same printer; HP LaserJet 4Ls.

However the problem occurs before printing. It is the display when the file is opened that is different (3/4 pages) on the recipient’s computer to the display on my computer (2 pages). In addition we both use Word 2000.

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> However the problem occurs before printing.

Word uses the printer settings to format the document on-screen, so different printers could lead to differently displayed documents.

You use the same printers. Do you also have the same version of the printer driver?

I recommend looking at Andrew Lockton’s suggestions.

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Print out as a PDF file and then this should make eveyone happy.

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

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Thank you for your reply & suggestion.

Speaking for myself & although I have Acrobat 5.0 I am not inpressed by the PDF format. Perhaps I need more experience of it. Nevertheless I will try it & see if it acceptable to the email recipients.

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>I Am Retired And Have NOT Missed A Day Of Work Since!<

After seven plus years of retirement I find it hard to work out how in fifty years I ever had time to go to work!

I am going to try PDF format on the recipients – thank you for your reply.

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As a Word 2000 document the file is 87Kb. As a PDF document it is 662Kb. Not all those on the distribution list have a broadband connection. Therefore distribution as a PDF is not going to be popular overall.

It seems from other replies that I need to set more generous margins particularly the bottom margin to allow for the printing area of an inkjet being shorter than that of a laserjet..

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Just another thought: in Tools | Options, tab Compatibility, there’s an option “Use printer metrics” (or something like it, translated from Dutch version of Word). This shouldn’t be ticked, otherwise Word repaginates the doc on opening, using the metrics in the driver of the current printer.

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Malcolm, if your pdf file is bigger than your word document I suspect you are pdf’ing in ebook format, try changing the pdf settings for either print or screen.

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Apologies for this tardy response. Nevertheless thank you for your reply.

I created another PDF after adjusting the settings. The size of the file is 649Kb compared to 662Kb. I can’t help thinking it is not much of a reduction when the Word 2000 document is 87Kb!

Since sending the above message I have been trying again & now have had some success. I have omitted two non-essential images & have found the screen setting to give the smallest PDF size I can get of 165Kb. However it is still double the size of its Word parent file & that after using the PDF Consultant | Detect & Remove tool. However it still seems a big overhead to me.

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I wonder whether Acrobat is doing something special to the file that makes it relatively larger than the Word document. You could try a simpler, free print-to-PDF product and see whether there is a noticeable difference. CutePDF Writer is one option, as is pdf995 (but the free version generates a pop-up ad).

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Thank you – I will try the free options.

That’s better so much better – CutePDFWriter has converted a 68 Kb Word 2000 document file to a 55Kb PDF. I’m happy – thank you again.

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That makes me think some other option might be turned on in Acrobat, such as font embedding or… I don’t have Acrobat, so I wouldn’t know.

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I suspect the document is set to refresh the styles when the file is opened and your base template has smaller type sizes in it. Have a look under Tools > Templates and Addins to make sure that the ‘Refresh styles’ option is turned off.

As already offered, Acrobat is a good way to avoid this (and other) problems in distributing Word files. There are freeware tools around to make acrobat files so you don’t need to spend money to create Acrobat files – but there is less fiddling around if you do.

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Thank you for your reply.

I have looked at Tools | Templates & Add-ins. `Automatically update document styles’ is not checked. I assume that is the function you refer to?

Although I have Acrobat 5.0 I am not impressed by its output. Nevertheless I will see if it is acceptable to my email recipients.

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