The beginning page numbers of pages that are printed in a page range may print as Page 1 or as Unknown in Publisher 2003 (834915)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office Publisher 2003
  • Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 with Digital Image Pro

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Office Publisher 2003, when you print a publication as page ranges (including one page at a time) raster image processor (RIP) or to a trapping workstation, that RIP or that workstation may treat the first page of every page range as though it were page 1.

CAUSE

This issue may occur when you print your publication one page at a time (or as page ranges) to an RIP or to a workstation that tries to save print jobs to folders for later processing, instead of printing them immediately.

The PostScript code that is contained in each page range that is printed may overwrite the previous page range. If you watch the RIP's print monitoring console, it may indicate that the page number for each page (or the first page of the page range) is either Page 1 or Unknown, regardless of which page in the publication it actually is.

When you print a page range (such as a single page or a range of several pages), the PostScript code acts as though the first page is always Page 1. Therefore, if the publication is named something that is similar to "Job33525.pub", and you print page 2 by itself, the print job appears to the print monitoring console as "Job33525.pub Page 1" or as "Job33525.pub Page Unknown". If you then print page 3 by itself, the print job appears to the print monitoring console with the same name.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, print each page of your publication as separate PostScript files; giving each PostScript file a unique file name. Then, you can download the files to your RIP or to your workstation.

To do this, follow these steps:
  1. On the File menu, click Print.
  2. In the Print dialog box, click to select the Print to file check box.
  3. In the Print range area, select Pages.
  4. In the from and to boxes, type the print range of pages that you want to print.
  5. Make any other printer settings changes as required, and then click OK.
  6. In the Print to File dialog box, type a unique file name, such as Job33525a.ps or Job33525_p1.ps in the File name box.
  7. Change the Save in box to the folder where you want to save your PostScript file, and then click Save.
After you create PostScript files for your whole job, download the files to your RIP or to your workstation. The exact method that you use for this step will depend on your workflow.

MORE INFORMATION

A PostScript print file is a file that contains a list of commands in the PostScript programming language. One feature of PostScript is the %%Page: comment. This comment has the following syntax:

%%Page: Page_Number Plate_Number

So, for example, the beginning of the PostScript code for the magenta plate on page 1 would have the comment:

%%Page: 1 2

This stands for the second plate on page 1. Similarly, the code for the black plate on page 5 would have the comment:

%%Page: 5 4

When you create a PostScript file from a publication, Publisher always starts each job with:

%%Page: 1 1

This means that certain RIPs and trapping programs treat every print job as beginning with page 1. Other programs have the capability of starting print jobs with the first page number as something other than 1. In these programs, if you print page 2 individually, the PostScript comment would be:

%%Page: 2 1

If you print each page of the publication to a PostScript file first, you can give each PostScript file a unique file name so that they will not overwrite each other. One advantage of doing this is that you can run the individual pages through a PostScript viewing utility or use a PostScript-to-PDF conversion utility to check the pages before you send them to the RIP. This can be useful if your RIP does not feature a preview window, or if you are new to working with Publisher files.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/1/2004
Keywords:kbprb KB834915 kbAudEndUser
©2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.