I have a doc I created in Word 2003 on an XP machine, that I want to print off a computer that has Vista and Word 2007. I saved it on my jump drive and opened it in Word 2007, and it seems it’s making the page smaller. When I print, everything is shrunken–the print is smaller and it’s like the page is 80% of the original size and pushed in the upper left hand corner. It looks that way on screen too. I checked all the font sizes and page sizes and it’s all the way it’s supposed to be. Also, I tried printing a converted and a non-converted document and it’s the same.
Please make the following assumptons:
I cannot go online at that computer
I cannot move printers
I cannot load different software onto that computer
Does word on the new printer correctly display and print documents that have been created on that computer?
How important is the formatting on your original document?
I’d probably save it as text (.txt) or as rich text (.rtf) and then open it in word on the vista machine and set the font, etc. The former might involve pasting the text into a notepad.exe file, saving & then reopening it to get all them MS programs to REALLY forget the formatting info. MS programs lie all the time about this stuff.
If that didn’t work, I’d try creating a .pdf (if you have acrobat or adobe pdf maker installed, it’ll sit on your system as a printer driver; just select that instead of whatever might [or not] be there), on the XP machine and then print that.
You’re in trouble. Every computer, printer, OS, and printer driver can have a slightly different default page size, and in fact there are probably different ‘printable’ regions of the page, ie, the place where the printer can put a dot. If the source and destination computers have different ideas, your slaved-over formatting is likely to break.
Over 450 pages, minute variations will add up. Word’s formatting engine is dynamic–less so than a web browser, but more than enough to make a difference in a document that long.
Still, .pdf format is your best option, IMO. It’s a lot less dynamic than word. There are a couple of modes, but a .pdf can be completely static, ie, sending a bitmap rather than formatted text to the printer. If you can make it do that, you’ll be able to keep your formatting.
PS: You say you can’t install software on the destination computer. If you can on your XP, it might be worth installing the driver for the Vista computer’s printer, and setting that as the default for your document* on your machine.
*Word files used to embed info derived from the default printer driver in every document. I have no idea if they still do.
thanks James, but that didn’t work. Simon’s right, I’m screwed. All the chapter breaks are in the wrong places. There’s a major formatting change from the two versions and I don’t know if I can reconcile it. Ill have to fire up the ink jet and see how it goes.
M$ says that 2007 will use a compatibility mode when opening a 2003 document. If it isn’t doing what they describe ya might want to poke at it for a bit and try to figure out why not.
Got it! I’d left a comment ballon in the margin (I’ve poured over it so many times I can’t believe I missed it) and Word 07 reacts differently to ballloons than 03 does.