Microscopic font when printing OE messages with attachments

Can anyone please help me with a weird printing-out problem I have had today, the second time in a few days?

I have an Epson Stylus Photo RX600 Printer and a Dell Dimension 5750 C running Windows XP Pro with SP2 and IE 7, all of which seem to be problem-free, apart from this printing problem

I use Outlook Express for e-mails. When I have sent a message, I usually click on it in the Sent Folder, to see that it was as it should have been and, invariably until now, it and particularly the font size, have been in order. Similarly, when I print out for my paper files a copy of a Sent message, it has always been exactly the same as I saw on my monitor

I sent a two-page message today, with a largish attachment (729KB). The font size was normal, before I sent it and, again, when I looked at the message in my Sent Folder. However, when I printed out the message, though there was no problem with the attachment (a photo) the font size of the message was close to microscopic "“ such as only a trainee spy might try to use!

I tried forwarding the message to myself. It looked perfectly normal in my Inbox, but printing it out had the same strange result. The same happened, when I saved the message

Turning the PC and the Printer on and off several times did not help

As I print out just a few of the emails I have sent, I tried printing out everything else sent over the last week or so. They all printed normally, except for those sent with attachments, which all printed out microscopically, like today’s

Attachments are clearly the root of the problem, but I have no idea what setting I could have inadvertently changed, having had no problem with them previously

I should be most grateful for any advice anyone can give, particularly as I have just realised that the recipients of my attachment-enclosing messages must be cursing me or sending for their own techies!

I have just realised that this problem has started since downloading IE7 recently

 

Open notepad.
Change the default font size.
Close notepad.

 

Changing the default font in Notepad (or in Word, which I use) does not help with the problem

Please forgive what is probably a very stupid question, but what has Notepad (or Word) got to do with printing out OE documents?

As I said, I recently upgraded to IE7. On a previous IE upgrade a few years ago, I had OE printing problems, which were solved by using the procedure given in
KB OLEXP. This procedure did not help, this time

Previous problems with OE message printing involved the font size in ALL of them, with no distinction between messages with and without attachments. May I stress that I now have no printing font size problems with messages without attachments, only those with attachments are affected

Any further suggestions, please?

 

My apologies, let me give you a few more details.

OE uses the Notepad print engine when you request a print. The font selection, size, margins .etc are drawn from the default settings of Notepd.

I was not aware of your use of IE 7, as this changes things. IE 7 will "pre-process" the print job. Use Print preview and look to see if "fit to print" is being used. This is the default and likely overall it would be best to leave it alone as a general setting.

For any particular job, use Preview first, and set its value to something other than fit to print.

Regards.

 

Thanks for the explanation of how OE uses the Notepad print engine "“ I had no idea about this

Though I do have IE7, my Print Preview does not have the facilities you mention "“ it is exactly as it was with IE6. I have ticked the preview box in Print Properties, so that, before anything is printed, I get a page headed "Print Preview "“ Microsoft Word "“ Document (No.)" showing a preview of the document to be printed. There is no mention anywhere of "fit to printâ€, much less of its "value" or of changing it.

Could I have accidentally "opted out" of some IE7 features and, if so, how do I restore them, please?

Anyway, I had not thought before of checking the problem document in Print Preview. You won’t be surprised to read that the text was abnormally small, though the attached image was normal. I can’t think though what I could have done to put matters right, before sending the message, had I previewed it

I explained previously how I got microscopic print, when printing out an OE message sent with an attachment. Printing after sending the message to myself; after copying and pasting to a Word document and after saving it did not help. Your mention of Notepad gave me the idea of copying and pasting the message to a Notepad document and then printing it. It printed normally, but I suppose this is due to Notepad dealing just with text and it would not have known that the message had been sent with an image attachment!

Regards

 

Sorry to be a nuisance, Bill, but I wonder whether you (or one of your learned colleagues)can please tell me where in my IE7 Print Preview I can find "fit to print" or how I can set a value to something other than fit to print

Regards

 

Hello Pete C

Sorry to come back to you so slowly

We are at cross purposes. The Print Preview you are and Bill Castner was talking about is that in Internet Explorer - great for playing about with the printing of Web pages but surely not relevant to the printing of Outlook Express emails, which is where my problem is!

The Print Preview that you get, when printing an email,(presumably part of Word) has no "change print size" or "shrink to fit" function. This is why, until the penny dropped, I had no idea what either of you was talking about

I have now deleted IE7 and gone back to IE6 and, not surprisingly, the problem has gone away. However, I would like to be able to use some of the new and useful features of IE7, so a solution to the problem (or an MS patch) would be appreciated
Regards

 

Pete C

I am as impressed with as I am grateful for your erudite explanation of my problem

Before broadband, we all took great care with the size of images, before emailing them, for fear of clogging up the recipient's system, but many, including myself, have become lazy. Looking back through the emails with attached images which caused the problem, I find that there was always one, the size of which I had neglected to reduce

The practical answer has to be to exercise more control over the reduction of image sizes, at least until Microsoft comes up with a patch, to put us back to where we were, without this problem, under IE6

Many thanks again