[gadusmorhua]

I'll start by excusing my ignorance, I've only had a p.c a matter of weeks, and the electricity to run it a matter of months!
My wife is attempting to print hundreds of articles from the Guardian Digital Archive, which she has taken out a month's subscription for.Her laptop is a dell inspiron, OS vista home basic, and I installed firefox as her browser, mainly because the IE wasn't working right.The articles won't resize to fit the page automatically, and even going to print options and selecting,say, 30% isn't enough to fit long articles on the page- neither will they run to a second page.If she files them, in html, they appear in documents with an empty folder, and the file.I then have to rename the folder before I can delete it, otherwise the file goes with it.
All this is very frustrating, especially as my p.c (xp home and IE) does all I want ,on the same site, with a single click.
I thought I was getting on well with computers until I bought the laptop with vista, I've had to install drivers to make the printer work properly and all sorts- seems like a step backwards!
Any help gratefully received, apologies again if I'm not making sense, not quite mastered the lingo yet.

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Hi gadusmorhua
On the vista machine please click on
Start>Control panel>double click printer icon. Right click on the printer and choose propertites.
on the general tab what is the paper size. A4 ?.
Check this on you xp machine and see if they match.
Next
When you have the site open (with firefox) click on file>page setup> Click on margin and header tab. Should be about 12.7mm
Click on format and option tab. there should be a tick next to shrink to fit page. If not click in the small box to add a tick then click ok.
Cheers
peterm

[peterm]

Hi gadusmorhua
On the vista machine please click on
Start>Control panel>double click printer icon. Right click on the printer and choose propertites.
on the general tab what is the paper size. A4 ?.
Check this on you xp machine and see if they match.
Next
When you have the site open (with firefox) click on file>page setup> Click on margin and header tab. Should be about 12.7mm
Click on format and option tab. there should be a tick next to shrink to fit page. If not click in the small box to add a tick then click ok.
Cheers
peterm

[gadusmorhua]

Thanks for the suggestion Peter but I have already ticked 'shrink to fit', with no joy.I thought I had it cracked when I went into the Canon Pixma properties tab and found 'resize spool data'. When I looked in help to find out what this was it told me it reduced the data sent to the printer, and could help when printing was cut off, but it has made no difference.
I've decided (even though I know nothing) it must be a firefox issue- I would reinstall IE but it wouldn't work when I first set up the laptop, but that is another issue.
My wife emailed the Guardian, who said there were some printing difficulties on the site which they are trying to resolve; I think they should resolve them before taking £28 for a month's subscription!
It might be quicker if my wife sends me links (lots of them!) to the articles and I print them. Quite time saving these computers!!
I shall go and give a pint of blood, as you request in your signature; a mobile unit is setting up in the village.
richard

[peterm]

Hi Richard
Yes I saw the FAQ on the web site saying that there were printing problems. However if you can print then your wife should be able to.
Are you both printing to the same printer?
Could I please have the complete make and model of the printer.(they make about 7 different pixma printers)
What seems to be wrong with IE ?
Did you check the paper size & the page setup info ?

Edited by peterm, 12 December 2007 - 04:51 PM.

[gadusmorhua]

peter,
we both have canon pixma mp170 printers but when I set up her laptop her printer didn't fuction properly (the mp navigator software I think) , so I downloaded a driver off the net, to my great satisfaction that sorted that problem out.
I can't remember exactly what the IE problem was, but it kept crashing so I installed ff.A mate has just told me to keep a note of all error messages etc for future reference, sounds like good advice.
I'm convinced it isn't anything on page setup/options, I'm quite familiar with that now.I meant to reinstal IE on the desk top and see what happens, when I get home I'll look see.
Thanks for your support, although my problem isn't serious it is annoying me- I hate to be beat!My wife is now telling me not to get uptight about it, there's gratitude!!

just tried starting IE and immediately got a message saying 'internet explorer has stopped working- windows is trying to solve the problem'. nothing happens after that. Exactly the same as when I first started up the laptop.

Edited by gadusmorhua, 13 December 2007 - 10:30 AM.

[deathninja]

Im sorry if you stated this in your first post OP but it wasn't crystal clear to me. When she goes to print these articles is there a simple "view printable version" (or other such wordage) that give a more printer friendly formatting option?

[peterm]

Is this the driver you downloaded for Vista
click on me
Want to try a basic trouble shooting?
Download firefox to your computer
Is the print out the same as xp & ie or same as vista?
Cheers
Peterm

Edited by peterm, 14 December 2007 - 05:10 AM.

[gadusmorhua]

Hi Peter,
Yes, that is the same driver I downloaded, off the Canon site.
I have downloaded firefox to my xp and it is behaving impeccably, it is resizing articles to fit on page and I havn't touched any printing options.
The Guardian got back to my wife and said they were looking into the problem but suggested in the meantime she could email links to herself to print, which is cumbersome. I can't persuade her she doesn't need to print everything she sets eyes on, she seems happy to have a piece of paper rather than an article saved to file which defeats the pointof a computer I think.

thanks again, 'scuse my verbosity,

rick

[peterm]

Ok it has to be a setting in the printer.
3 things to try.
1) simple test Plug your printer into vista machine - does this solve the problem?
2) Check every setting in both printers - takes a bit of work.
3) on vista machine download to file and then print file .

[gadusmorhua]

swapped printers over, problem solved.the printer was a factory return from ebay, only £28 including two ink cartridges but I guess it has cost me that in aggravation.
I'll let her print away and leave it at that .Thanks for your help Peterm, would give more blood but I'm nearly dry!
rick

[peterm]

Glad you got sorted.
At least you got spare ink
Cheers
peterm

Edited by peterm, 17 December 2007 - 01:06 AM.