According to Office MVP Bob Buckland, this problem seems to be caused by
Word temporarily losing track of the printer driver. It usually suffices to
open the Print dialog, change printers, change back, then Close.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
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"PJC" wrote in message
...
I tried to open a Word 97 document that I created in Word 2003. In
document
preview it showed normally, however, when the document opened ALL of the
characters of each line were piled on top each other. This wasn't print
preview mode and therefore, I do not believe that it is a printer issue.
I
was able to open it in WordPad and then paste it back into a Word 2003
document and save. What gives????? On a more important and larger doc I
would have been crazy. Thanks for your insight.