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Bill Drake
 
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Default Odd Page Layout Problem with Word 2002 in Office XP

I've made up a very simple document that is a home inventory.

The original page-layout is 1" borders, top/bottom/left/right.

The first line on the first page of the document is a title in 18pt
Bold/Underline.

The second line on the first page is a subtitle in 16pt Bold/Underline

The third line on the first page is a sub-subtitle in 14pt Bold/Underline

All the rest of the lines on the page are body-text. Each line of body-text
is a single inventory item.


It happens that the contents of the first page are all the contents of the
"Refrigerator" sub-subtitle.

The beginning of the second page is therefore the second sub-subtitle.

This area of the document is a long list that spans 4 pages.

Near the bottom of the 5th page is the third sub-subtitle. The list
continues on to the 6th page.

Near the middle of the 6th page is the fourth sub-subtitle. The list
continues on to the 7th page, where the document ends.


Things look fine in both Page-Layout and Print-Preview modes. The
text is shown properly on the page, respecting the top and bottom
margins.

However, when printed, the page margins on the second and
subsequent pages vary markedly from the first page.

The first page properly shows the top of the 18pt Title Text at the 1"
top margin mark -- with free-space at the bottom of the document
of 1", respecting the fact that it is impossible to add another line of
text to this page without overflowing the bottom margin.

The second page shows the top of the 14pt sub-subtitle text at the 1.5"
mark. I certainly didn't put it there... More importantly, the bottom
margin has shifted down so the bottom margin is now 0.75" This
completely breaks with the page-layout specification I set up during
the initial document-layout-creation process.

All subsequent pages respect the top-margin and bottom-margin
settings as for the second page. It's as if the whole page of info
has been shifted down -- but Word doesn't show or display this on
screen.


Things I've checked:

1. I first thought this might be a printer problem. I've checked the
hardware printer margins in the printer itself. No problems that
I can see there.

2. I then thought this might be a printer driver problem. My printer
is an NEC Silentwriter 95, which has both Postscript Level 2 and
LaserJet 3 emulations. I tried changing the printer to the other
emulation and reprinted the document using the other printer
driver. Exactly the same layout prints using both printer drivers.

3. Yes, I've brought both WXP-SP2 and OXP-SP3 completely up
to date according to both Windows Update and Office Update.
(I confirm that all subsequent updates past WXP-SP2 and
OXP-SP3 are installed -- both Windows Update and Office
Update show as fully up to date.)


Anybody else seen this? I think I've found a bug, but I certainly
don't remember seeing this before -- so this may be a consequence
of a recent DLL update set that hasn't been properly regression
tested.

Further insights are most welcome.


Thanks,


Bill