PUB98: Thin Lines in BorderArt and Pictures Do Not Print (198497)

CAUSE

Some Publisher BorderArt patterns and imported pictures contain hairlines. A hairline is a line that appears one pixel wide on whatever device you are using to display or print that line. If you print a hairline on a 300-dpi printer, the line is 1/300" wide. If you print that same hairline on a Linotronic imagesetter at 2540 dpi, that line is 1/2540" wide (effectively invisible.)

The PostScript language does not include the concept of a hairline. When Publisher prints a hairline to a PostScript printer driver, the driver uses the resolution setting to determine how wide to print the lines.

WORKAROUND

Method 1: Print At a Resolution of 1200 DPI (or Lower).

Print at a resolution of 1200 dpi (or lower). Publisher ships with a PPD (PostScript Printer Definition) file called the Microsoft Publisher Imagesetter (MSGenbw.ppd). If you use this driver, hairlines will print at 1/600". If you do not have this driver listed, follow these steps:

On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
Double-click the Add Printer Wizard.
Follow the instructions on screen. When the Wizard asks you for the manufacturer and model of the printer, click Have Disk.
Click Browse.
Browse to the C:\Windows\System folder. Click OK.
Click OK again.
On the Printers list click MS Publisher Imagesetter. Click Next.
To complete the Wizard, follow the instructions.

Method 2: Replace The Hairlines With Thicker Lines.

Replace the hairlines with thicker lines. To this with Microsoft Draw, follow these steps:

Select the object that contains the hairlines.
On the Edit menu, click Cut.
On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click New Drawing. A rectangular hatched area appears. You can drag the resize handles on this area until it is approximately the same size and shape as the object.
On the Edit menu, click Paste. The object should appear within the hatched drawing area. You can drag the object if you need to until it fits correctly.
On the Draw menu (at the bottom of the screen), click Ungroup. You will see this message:
This is an imported picture, not a group. Do you want to convert it to a Microsoft Office drawing object?
Click Yes.
Click outside the hatched area to close Microsoft Draw and return to Publisher.

This process breaks the picture up into its separate components. Since Microsoft Draw does not support hairlines, any hairlines are converted to lines with a thickness of 0.25 pt.

MORE INFORMATION

This issue only affects imported pictures and shapes with BorderArt patterns. While Publisher's drawing tools also have a hairline setting, this is a different type of hairline. Publisher's drawing tools define a hairline as 1/4 of a point (approximately 1/300"), no matter what resolution the output device is set up for.

Many of Publisher's BorderArt patterns contain hairlines. However, with a number of them the hairlines are visually unimportant. Below is a list of the BorderArt patterns, which suffer the most if their hairlines don't print:

Basic...Thin Lines
Basic...White Dashes
Basic...White Squares
Basic...Wide Midline
Basic...Wide Inline
Certificate Banner
Checked Bar
Checkered
Classical Wave
Cross-Stitch
Eclipsing Squares
Flowers...Tiny
Marquee
Marquee...Toothed
Push Pin in Note 2
Pushpin in Note
Zigzag Stitch

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