Text appears as symbols

[Wanabe]

Based on my subject line this may appear as a simple printer driver problem but I'm finding it to be more difficult to solve than that.

I have several Win98SE machines running a proprietary app that prints customer statements, etc. All of these machines have the capability to print to a network printer (hp4500) mapped from an NT4 server. The problem is that one of these machines prints statements in which all of the text appears as little rectangles. The numbers on the statement do show up but the font type and size is all messed up throughout and so everything is missaligned.

At first I thought it was the printer driver and so I've made sure that it has the exact same printer driver that all of the other machines have. I also thought that it might be a difference in the way that the software was configured but all that looks identical.

The only real difference between the machine that does not work and those that do is that the machines that do print OK have a locally attached printer with the capability to print to the mapped networked printer as well. The problem machine can only print to the network printer and does not have a printer locally attached. However, I don't see how this could be the problem.

Any thoughts on this would be extreamly appreciate.

Thanks,
Wanabe

[glc]

Is this a DOS-based proprietary app or Windows-based? If it's DOS-based, it doesn't use the Windows printer driver, you have to select the right printer from within the program. Do all the machines have the same fonts installed?

[jmatt]

Windows 95/98 ® printing issues
http://www.sturec.com/printhlp.htm

Weird letters or symbols appear in place of straight lines

Root Cause
Printer is not 'Graphics-Able', or is using the wrong font, or a rude Windows program did not re-set the printer back to the way it was found.

Possible Solutions
Edit the printer control strings and set 'Graphic Able' to NO. Or, for HP printers, change the "Set On LQ" to CHR(27)+"(10U"

Consult your printer manual to configure it for a font that contains box-drawing characters (such as PC-8)

[Wanabe]

glc - This is a Windows proprietary app. I've copied all of the fonts from the other working machines to the one that's not working so they all have identical fonts installed. Also, it doesn't matter which printer I print to, I get the same results. In addition, I've replaced all of the programs files with copies from a working machine.

I'm wondering if I just need to wipe this machine clean and reinstall from scratch. This problem is kicking my a**

Wanabe

[glc]

When all else fails, a nuke and pave can cure a lot of ills, especially with Win9x.

[Wanabe]

I agree!

Thanks,
Wanabe

[glc]

Just thought of something - might be worth a try installing TweakUI and repair the fonts folder.

[Wanabe]

Thanks glc - Tried it but no go. The nuke/pave did the trick.

Thanks for your input