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I've recently encountered a mysterious problem with my Xerox Phaser 6180N networked colour laser printer in which certain documents fail to print from Microsoft Word.
When the problem appears the print status popup window disappears a few seconds after it appears. And, then nothing else happens. There is nothing in the print queue on Windows and nothing on the printer's status web page either as far as I can see.
In my first encounter with this, I was trying to print 3 copies of a document but I had no trouble printing just a single copy. At the time I thought it was an odd glitch but didn't make time to investigate. Now the problem has recurred with a different document (three pages with 5 inline screenshots in Word 2010 format) except this time I wasn't trying to print multiple copies.
From the same computer with the print problem, I am able to print the following:
- the Windows XP Printer Test Page
- a simple test document (one sentence) from Word, and
- the problem document from Adobe Reader, obviously after first exporting it from Word to PDF
- everything else I've tried to print recently (email, other documents, downloaded PDFs, etc.)
Given that my printer is on my local network (using a standard Windows TCP/IP port) I tested printing from a second computer on the same network. There were no problems printing from the second computer, but then I realized the second computer is running Microsoft Word 2003; the computer where I had the problem has Microsoft Word 2010 installed.
After finding some mentions online of print problems related to certain fonts in Word, I decided to try changing some fonts. I changed to the heading font in the styles (the document is using Heading 1 and Heading 2) from Cambria to Times New Roman. With this change, the first page (out of 3 total) printed but not the whole document. Additionally changing the Normal style to use Arial instead of Calibri had the same effect (first page only).
I tried to a few searches for solutions, but didn't notice anything that seemed applicable given that I'm not having any trouble with printing in general.
Additional troubleshooting notes
- the printer driver in use is the most recent version on the Xerox website
- the only available firmware update states that it's for "adding support for IPv6 / IPSec, when the MPC card is installed." My printer doesn't have the MPC card installed.
- Word 2010 has received all critical updates available from Microsoft Update. The problem described in this question was encountered before and after installing Office 2010 SP1
as always, make sure your printer driver and firmware are up to date – Keltari – 2011-08-27T21:37:03.503
@Keltari The printer driver is current. The only firmware update available from Xerox states that it's for "adding support for IPv6 / IPSec, when the MPC card is installed." I don't have the MPC card with my printer. – moberley – 2011-08-27T22:07:36.597
It is not a printer problem it is a Word problem. Is office 2010 up to date on its updates? – Kevin – 2011-08-27T22:46:11.153
@Kevin I checked Microsoft Update and there was an Office service pack available (thanks for the reminder), but after a restart I didn't notice any difference in the printing behaviour. – moberley – 2011-08-28T02:49:53.063
Since the same document will print as a PDF and from a different version of Word. The problem must be Word 2010. Since updates did not fix it try replacing the normal.dotm file by deleting it (with Word not running) and starting Word to recreate it, This sometimes fixes weird printing issues. It will replace any customizations you have added with defaults so you will have to re-create them. – Kevin – 2011-08-28T17:51:10.867
@Kevin I wasn't able to find a "Normal.dotm" (or "Normal.dot") file in the Application Data/Microsoft/Templates folder. I did remove files named NormalOld.dot and ~$Normal.dot. – moberley – 2011-08-30T00:48:39.713
Mine is in my profile under AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates. I am using 2007 here at home. But it is likely in the same place with 2010. I could verify that tomorrow at work. I using Windows 7 Pro. – Kevin – 2011-08-30T01:09:28.120
At work [Windows XP/Office 2010] it is in my profile: Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. Which is where you looked. Maybe if you make no customizations it is never created in the first place. Do you have media to uninstall/reboot/install MS Office 2010? – Kevin – 2011-08-30T16:03:16.403