[Bob S]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:13:02 -0700, Paul G Paul
wrote:

Hi, everytime I try and print a word document it only prints on half of an A4
page instead of the full page. Even though print preview shows the document
to cover the full page? Can someone help:-)

Is this a laser printer? Printing half a page is a typical symptom of
insufficient printer memory when printing graphics. Since you
mentioned elsewhere that it started happening after you got a new PC,
you could try the following:

See whether the printer driver needs an update.

See whether your printer has enough memory; 1M should be enough for
text; you may need 4M for graphics.

Check whether "Print TrueType Fonts as Graphics" has accidentally
gotten set. If your printer has this feature, you can find it by
opening Printers and Faxes, right-clicking the printer icon and
selecting Printing Preferences, click the Advanced button, and look
under Document Options. This should probably be turned off unless you
need it for some good reason.

Check out "Page Protect". Look under Printers and Faxes, right-click
the printer icon and select Properties, look on the Device Settings
tab. Try turning it on, if your printer has it. This makes sure that
the entire page is shipped to the printer before printing starts. This
can help if you have a slow connection to the printer.

More background:

In general, adding more memory does not speed up printing; it can
allow more complex jobs to be printed. It may allow the CPU to get the
job moved to the printer sooner (i.e. out of the queue). On the other
hand, RAM can be very inexpensive these days.

The CPU sends the job (preferably at least one page of it) to the
printer, where it sits in printer memory. The job might include text,
images, and downloaded fonts. The printer's rendering engine
translates the job into a pattern of dots, which also sit in printer
memory. Once the page has been translated or memory fills up, the
print engine starts moving at constant speed. Once the engine starts
moving, the CPU, wire, memory, and rendering engine have to keep
feeding dots. If they can't, the job fails. So it helps to have enough
memory to make sure that an entire page can be rendered.

If half a page prints correctly and the other half doesn't, and if the
problem is fixed by reducing resolution, you probably need more
printer memory.

Bob S