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Dell 1100 printer slow on Word 2002 files

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by davidgibbons, 2006/01/24.

  1. 2006/01/24
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    I have been using a Dell 1100 laser printer for three weeks and I have only just met this problem. On small files it's OK but if I try to print more than a single copy of a Word 2002 file (one-page files), it will only print one page at a time. The pages are typically 60-300 K long. It will print several copies of an EXCEL file or JPG file from PSP (more than 1M size) without pausing though and at high speed.

    I am running Windows XP, have 512M of RAM on the PC and more than 50GB free on the hard disk

    How can I put this speed problem right? Any help appreciated

    David :(
     
    davidgibbons,
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  2. 2006/01/28
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    A workaround I find is to load the Word files into the Sun Microsystems OpenOffice writer. This prints multiple copies perfectly.
    David
    :)
     
    davidgibbons,
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  4. 2006/01/28
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Sorry David, there are no prizes for solving your own problem. Buy yourself a cigar next time you're out :D

    For any Word documents larger than a few pages, I always go to File -> Print and only print several pages at a time. It saves trying to clear the print jobs when that happens. I have found no reason for why it happens either.

    Thanks for the work-around.

    Matt
    PS. Probably only dreaming, but since Word is a good platform for using non-standard fonts, are you using a non-standard type in Word? I know printers had problems when running non-standard fonts in the past. It does not explain why Open Office can print the documents though.
     
    mattman,
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  5. 2006/01/28
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    A possible explanation for the problem

    I am using a perfectly standard (and legitimate) copy of WORD 2002 in a fairly straightforward way to create a fairly complicated magazine page. A lot of formatting, pictures, tables etc. So it finishes up as a number of separate files each between 50K - 300K long. These I prrint separately but 20 copies of each.
    To do this I use a printer which ony has 2MB internal memory and this is not expandable. And I think herein lies the problem - large word processor overheads and small built-in printer memory.
    I guess OpenOffice Writer has lower overheads.
    Anyway thanks for your interest. Maybe someone from Microsoft or from Sun Microsystems could explain it.
    David :)
     
    davidgibbons,
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  6. 2006/01/28
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    David

    I think you are barking up the wrong tree :)
    I work in Photoshop and regularly print 100Mb+ files with no problem at all on an Epson 1270/1290 printer, neither of which has more than a few Mb memory.

    As I understand the document is fed in increments to the printer memory from the print spool until the print is completed - no way is the whole document stored in the printer memory. For small documents such as you note of a few 100 Kb only one 'copy' will be passed to the printer with an instruction to print x times.

    As the printer seems to cope with other (larger) Office files and files from another application I would be looking at Word which may not be sending the correct instructions to the print spool.

    I would Repair Word - Help > Detect and Repair and see if that fixes the problem. And if that does not work consider a reinstall of the printer drivers or call Dell support.
     
    PeteC,
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  7. 2006/01/29
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    Problem cured but needed to resstore defaults

    Thanks for the tip but it didn't help when I 'restored' asking it to keep my old settings and shortcuts etc. But it CURED THE PROBLEM when I asked the 'restore' program to reset all the settings to their default values.
    Many thanks for curing the problem
    David :D
     
    davidgibbons,
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  8. 2006/01/29
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    No it didn't

    Restoring the defaults and repairing the WORD installation only helped with multiple copies of small single-page WORD files. Now I've had a chance to retry a large file I've got the old problrms again.
    So what next?
    David :confused:
     
    davidgibbons,
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  9. 2006/01/29
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    This is a long shot - move the Print Spooler ....

    Make a directory on the hard drive 'Print Spool', either on the system partition or on another partition/drive if you have more than one.

    Start > Printers & Faxes > File > Server Properties > Advanced and type in the location of the new Print Spool - make a note of the default location if you should need to return to it.
     
    PeteC,
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  10. 2006/01/29
    davidgibbons

    davidgibbons Inactive Thread Starter

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    See if moving the print spool folder helps

    I had the same idea yesterday and moved it to another parttion. No change- even after a reboot. Anyway thanks for the suggestion.
    David :)
     
    davidgibbons,
    #9

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