WD97: Some Printers Will Not Print Unicode Characters

• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, you should first make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat). Both are hidden files in the Windows folder.

SYMPTOMS

If you print a document containing extended characters, such as Greek symbols, to certain printers using printer drivers that do not accept Unicode characters, the extended characters may be printed as square boxes even though they are displayed correctly on the screen.

The problem affects the following printers and printer drivers:

• Canon BubbleJet BJ-C600, 4000, 4200, 4500, 4550, v 3.40
• Canon Multipass 2500 3.40
• Epson Color 500
• Epson Stylus Color, v 2.x
• Epson Stylus Pro / XL v. 2.11BE
• HP Color LaserJet 5 PCL, printer driver version F 1.300
• HP DeskJet 1600C, printer driver version 4.20
• HP LaserJet 4 PCL, printer driver version 3.78
• HP LaserJet 6P, standard printer driver
• Okidata 4 laser printer

CAUSE

This problem occurs because these printer drivers do not provide support for Unicode characters.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use any of the following methods.

Method 1: Set a Print Flag

There is a flag (registry setting) for the printer driver that causes it to use American National Standards Institute (ANSI) character layout functions instead of Unicode character layout functions. When set correctly, this flag allows the printer driver to print the extended characters correctly. To set this flag, use the method appropriate for your version of Word.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows 95. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the Changing Keys And Values online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note that you should make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) before you edit the registry.

Microsoft Word 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1):

If you have installed Microsoft Word 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1), you can set one registry entry that applies to all installed printers. If you have the original (non-SR1) version of Word 97, see the "Word 97 (Non-SR1) Version" section later in this article instead.

To set the registry entry, follow these steps:

1. On the Start menu, click Run.

2. In the Open box, type "regedit" (without the quotation marks) and then click OK.

3. Locate the following registry key:

         HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options
   

4. Double-click the Options key to open it.

5. With the Options key selected, on the Edit menu, point to New and click String Value.

6. In the right pane, type "NoWideTextPrinting" (without the quotation marks), and press ENTER.

7. With NoWideTextPrinting selected, on the Edit menu, click Modify.

8. In the Value Data box, type the value "1" (without the quotation marks) and click OK.

9. On the Registry menu, click Exit, and then restart Word.

   ARTICLE-ID: Q172475
   TITLE     : OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-1

If you have not yet installed Word 97 Service Release 1, but have the original (non-SR1) version of Word 97, follow these steps:

1. On the Start menu, click Run.

2. In the Open box, type "regedit" (without the quotation marks) and then click OK.

3. Locate the following registry key:

         HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word
   

4. Double-click the Word key to open it.

5. Under the Word key, click to select your printer name.

   NOTE: If your printer name is not displayed under the Word key, then follow these steps:

       a. On the Registry menu, click Exit.
   

       b. Start Word.
   

       c. On the File menu, click Print. Under Printer, select your printer in
          the Name list, and then click the Close button (the "x" on the right
          side of the title bar). If the appropriate printer is already
          selected, then click Cancel.
   

       d. On the Tools menu, click Options.
   

       e. Click the Print tab, and then click OK.
   

       f. Start method 1 again at step 1.
   

6. With the printer key selected, on the Edit menu, point to New, and click String Value.

7. In the right pane, type "Flags" (without the quotation marks), and press ENTER.

8. With Flags selected, on the Edit menu, click Modify.

9. In the Value box, type "8192" (without the quotation marks) and click OK.

Method 2: Printer-Specific Workarounds

The following information describes workarounds that are available for specific printer drivers. Note that not all printer drivers may have a specific workaround (in this case, method 1 is the only available workaround).

HP DeskJet 1600C:

To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Printers.

2. Click the HP DeskJet 1600C ColorSmart printer icon.

3. On the File menu, click Properties.

4. In the HP DeskJet 1600C ColorSmart Properties dialog box, click the Details tab, and then click the Setup button.

5. In the ColorSmart Setup dialog box, click the Advanced button.

6. In the Advanced dialog box, select "Use LaserJet III font scaling" and click OK to close each of the open dialog boxes.

To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Printers.

2. Click the HP LaserJet 4 printer icon.

3. On the File menu, click Properties.

4. From the HP LaserJet 4 Properties dialog box, click the Fonts tab.

5. In the Fonts dialog box, under True Type fonts, select "Print TrueType as graphics" and click OK.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

ASCII characters are represented by the values 0 to 127; ANSI includes ASCII but adds characters 128 through 255. In all languages, the ASCII characters are exactly the same, but characters 128-255 are used for characters specific to a language, based on the code page associated with the language. This approach handles the character differences for most languages in the world.

Some languages (specifically, East Asian languages such as Japanese Kanji, several dialects of Chinese, and Korean) cannot be represented with only 256 characters. The written characters in these languages are entire words rather than individual letters, so there are typically over 6000 different characters.

Unicode was introduced to handle these languages. Unicode uses two bytes per character, instead of the standard one byte per character.

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q159471
   TITLE     : Word 97: How to Install the Far East Support Files

   ARTICLE-ID: Q99884
   TITLE     : Unicode and Microsoft Windows NT

   ARTICLE-ID: Q130052
   TITLE     : Ideas to Remember as You Convert from ASCII or ANSI to
               Unicode

For additional information on how to obtain technical support for Microsoft products if you are outside the United States, contact the Microsoft subsidiary for your area.

To locate your subsidiary, see the Microsoft World Wide Offices Web site at:

   http://www.microsoft.com/worldwide/default.htm.

     ARTICLE ID: Q49868
     TITLE: Microsoft International Subsidiary Technical Support