PUB: Hairlines Disappear When Printing to an HP III
Article ID: 128484
Article Last Modified on 8/16/2005
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Publisher 3.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Publisher 2.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft Publisher 2.0a
This article was previously published under Q128484
SYMPTOMS
When you print a publication, certain lines disappear randomly from a document
printed to a Hewlett-Packard (HP) III series printer at 300 dpi. The lines that
disappear are the lines set to the Hairline thickness, to a color other than
black, and to the lightest gray fill style.
CAUSE
The HP III printer trys to fit the pattern fill of the light gray style to
a 300 dpi grid using an averaging algorithm. Some pixels fall out of the
average, others find a perfect match. The color black fills the pixels
evenly, while the other colors have an uneven fill pattern that doesn't quite
match the average.
WORKAROUND
There are four possible workarounds:
- Change the width of the line to one point. This will create a line
that is four pixels wide on a 300 dpi printer and may resolve the
problem.
- Change the line color to black. This will let your line(s) print in
the light gray fill style on the HP III printer.
- Choose the next lighter gray fill style for the line. The darker gray
fill has more pixels to hit the HP III fill average, and should print
out fine.
- Reposition the lines up or down slightly. Since the problem is caused
by aligning the fill to the HP III's 300 dpi fill average, moving the
line up or down may place it in a position to hit the average and print
out. This is the more laborious of the work arounds mentioned in this
article because it will take several tries before you find the right
position for the line to print out.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products
listed at the beginning of this article.
Additional query words: 2.00 2.00a pub20 pub20a pub3 Pub97 mspub
Keywords: kbprint kbprb KB128484