Word 2010 will not print images or text boxes

Anonymous
2011-03-08T21:00:27+00:00

I have a Word 2010 doc that will not print images or text boxes, of which the doc contains twenty or so. I have tried printing to different printers (different brands/models) in our office, to no avail. When printing to PDF (Acrobat Pro, not Word's built-in distiller), it works; so does doing a Save As using the built-in PDF distiller. Curiously, a single image in the doc does, in fact, print; it was imported from a 2003 doc (however, so were most of the other images that are not printing). In addition, I have a SmartArt component (org chart) that is printing fine.

Any suggestions on a solution are appreciated. Converting to PDF each time I need to print is tedious and should not be necessary when using the world's most popular word processor...

Thanks.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-03-08T23:27:59+00:00

I think you are correct. This does sound like a problem with the printer driver. Check to make sure that you have the latest driver and then delete and reinstall the printer.

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  1. Stefan Blom 353K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-03-14T23:28:11+00:00

    If you then save as PDF, do the pictures show up OK in the PDF when you view it Adobe Acrobat Reader?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-14T23:05:42+00:00

    Hi Stefan, yes print preview is just fine.

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  3. Stefan Blom 353K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2016-03-14T22:57:04+00:00

    Do these pictures show up in the preview at File | Print?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-14T22:46:39+00:00

    The problem I have is when there is an object (shape for instance) either in the header/footer OR in the main document area, and then a picture is placed on top of the shape. The settings on the shape would be 'behind text', the setting on the picture would be either in-line OR with a square or tight text wrap. The picture doesn't print, but the shape does print. Sometimes the text prints and sometimes not. Print preview looks fine. We have tried various printers and also creating a pdf - using both the inherent Word pdf creator and Adobe Acrobat professional. The problem is intermittent but we are unable to tie it down to a certain user or printer or way of printing. 

    I created a template a few years ago (Office 2010) and we had this problem as well. Our solution was to remove the 'layering'. This recent template (created in Office 2013) has the same issue, it's still layering and it doesn't matter whether the shape is in the header/footer or just in the background. Extremely frustrating when your client is happy with the look but it doesn't print for them. I suspect it could be the way certain printers spool and network speed, etc.. Do you have any thoughts on that?

    Since there are multiple users, having each person having to change a setting is a bit unrealistic. (Note however that our Corporate Standards have 'print drawings created in Word' checked as default so this may not be the issue.) Also, company printer drivers are kept up-to-date.

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