Printer drivers are a possibility: Word formats the document partly
according to its understanding of what the printer is going to do with it.
In particular, depending on the printer driver settings, the document may
get printed not with the fonts installed on the computer but with the
equivalent fonts installed within the printer. Such fonts often have
slightly different metrics, resulting in slight differences in line spacing,
etc.
Different versions of fonts are another (and more likely) possibility: fonts
get updated occasionally to improve their microtypography. This too can
result in slight metric changes. If you open the font itself in the Control
Panel you can see its version and date.
A piece of research: print out both versions of a page that differs between
computers (eg the page 53 you refer to), superimpose them and hold them up
against a window: check *exactly* what differs.
"Benjamino5" wrote in message
news
A rare but recurring problem at work has stumped me. The same Word file
will
have (automatic) page breaks in slightly different spots depending on the
computer! One computer will have a heading at the bottom of page 53, for
example, while another will have that same heading at the top of page 54.
The file has no special manual page breaks, section breaks, weird styles,
etc.
I've noticed that some computers have Word 2000 ((9.0 .7616 SP-3) as the
version number, and so far, each one has laid out the pages the same way
(heading at bottom of page 53).
Other computers are missing some security updates, and have Word 2000 (9.0
.6926 SP-3). They show the heading at the top of page 54.
I asked our IT department to upgrade my computer (we're not allowed to do
this generally) with all security updates.
Now I have Word 2000 (9.0.8950 SP-3), and I'm seeing the heading at the
top
of page 54, just like the machines with Word 2000 (9.0 .6926 SP-3).
I should stress here that the page 53/54 example is just ONE example among
many. This issue is not related to a single Word file--it has happened
repeatedly with various projects, various Word files, and on various
computers.
On another discussion board, someone suggested that printer drivers help
determine page layout. Is this true? I'm beginning to doubt my initial
theory
about security updates (it is pretty far-fetched), but having printer
drivers
change the on-screen layout of the file also seems rather far-fetched.
What do you think could be responsible for these discrepancies? Do you
have
any ideas about how to troubleshoot this?
Thanks in advance!