Underlining Shifted to the Left When Printing from Applications (179813)

SYMPTOMS

Underlining may be shifted to the left when you print from applications like Microsoft Word for Windows using a Printer Control Language (PCL) driver.

This problem does not occur with PostScript drivers.

CAUSE

Windows NT 4.0 Graphical Device Interface (GDI) was designed to use device fonts to determine scaling and positioning of printed output. The results of calculating the width of the underlined text can be truncated with certain point sizes. This causes visible differences in the printed document where the underlining may be shifted to the left of the actual text by several pixels.

Future version of Windows NT will use True Type fonts to determine positioning and scaling of printed output.

RESOLUTION

Print Text As Graphics is an option that tells the GDI to use True Type fonts for determining the positioning and scaling of printed output.

To resolve this problem on a document by document basis in an application such as Microsoft Word for Windows, perform the following steps:

From the File menu, click Print.
Click Properties, then click the Advanced tab.
Click the plus sign to expand the folder list for Document Options, then select Print Text As Graphics and click the ON radio button.

To change the document default for all new documents for a specific printer, perform the following steps:

Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
Right-click on the desired printer.
Click Document Defaults.
Click the plus sign to expand the folder list for Document Options, then select Print Text As Graphics and click the ON radio button.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Windows NT version 4.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.