printer skipping text on formatted document

H

HazelD

My 88-pg. Word document (poetry manuscript) prints with random skips. Maybe
a line or two, maybe a word or several words randomly, and not on every page.
I was told to retype it in "Normal" style, as word can get confused with
lots of formatting. Instead, I formatted a style especially for the ms. and
used that. I've had the printer checked. It's ok and it works perfectly on
everything but this document. Thanks for your help.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Well, first of all, ignore the person who told you to type it in Normal
style because Word can get confused with lots of formatting. Yes, it is
preferable to use styles rather than direct font/paragraph formatting, and
complex documents do challenge some printers, but putting everything in
Normal style is just the opposite of what you want to do.

For poetry I suggest a paragraph style with some Space Before/After and a
left indent that will visually center the average line. Use line breaks at
the ends of verses in a stanza, paragraph breaks only at the ends of
stanzas. If you want stanzas to stay together, apply "Keep lines together"
formatting to the style. Use a different style for the titles of the poems
and make it "Keep with next" or even "Page break before."

Display nonprinting characters (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm) and examine the
pages for any anomalies that might be causing the document to print
incorrectly. In particular, examine the words or lines that aren't printing
correctly and make sure they aren't formatted as Hidden.

If you've done all this and the poems still don't print properly, I'd guess
that the problem may be with the printer driver. You might try updating the
driver.
 
H

HazelD

Thank you. I'm on it.
--
HazelD


Suzanne S. Barnhill said:
Well, first of all, ignore the person who told you to type it in Normal
style because Word can get confused with lots of formatting. Yes, it is
preferable to use styles rather than direct font/paragraph formatting, and
complex documents do challenge some printers, but putting everything in
Normal style is just the opposite of what you want to do.

For poetry I suggest a paragraph style with some Space Before/After and a
left indent that will visually center the average line. Use line breaks at
the ends of verses in a stanza, paragraph breaks only at the ends of
stanzas. If you want stanzas to stay together, apply "Keep lines together"
formatting to the style. Use a different style for the titles of the poems
and make it "Keep with next" or even "Page break before."

Display nonprinting characters (see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NonPrintChars.htm) and examine the
pages for any anomalies that might be causing the document to print
incorrectly. In particular, examine the words or lines that aren't printing
correctly and make sure they aren't formatted as Hidden.

If you've done all this and the poems still don't print properly, I'd guess
that the problem may be with the printer driver. You might try updating the
driver.
Click to expand...
 
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