excel not printing correctly to pdf

[wsharp]

I have a problem, that appears to be excel related rather than adobe pdf related. I have an excel spreadsheet that I have used for about 1.5 years and last used it about three weeks ago. It is legal paper size (8.5 x 14) and when I print it to a printer, it prints fine. When I print it to pdf, the whole "legal" size document comes out, BUT, about 10 inches from the top, the image "stops". This shows in the print preview also...the image just "stops". I have: 1) re-installed BOTH acrobat and excel. 2) I have tried old, known to work versions of the spreadsheet and they NOW exhibit the problem, where they did print (to pdf) correctly, just weeks ago and years ago. 3)I have tried to print (to pdf) other "legal" size docs, and they all work fine, including lotus 123 versions of legal size spreadsheets. I have looked at and "defined" the print area. I have "cleared" the print area. I have looked, but maybe am missing something, to see if those cells are "different" in some manner...nothing comes up that I can see.

IF the spreadsheet has multiple pages (generally 3 legal pages), ALL the pages print the same way...the image stops at the same spot on ALL pages.

I am not a novice at this, this anomaly, just started this week. I run an XP Pro platform with all the latest updates, acrobat 6.0 pro and excell is from office 2000.

HELP
Bill Sharp
{Moderator removed}

 

[Andrew Fergus]

Hi Bill and welcome to MrExcel!

This is going to be a process of elimination. Does Adobe do this to other office documents (e.g. Word)? If so, it sounds like an Office vs Adobe problem - I saw you tested this with Lotus but I'm curious about other MS applications.

If not, it could just be Excel or it could just be the workbook in question. If you copy the information from your existing workbook to a new workbook, does it exhibit the same problem? And is Adobe doing this for other workbooks?

I have seen a pdf writer do this before where the pdf document was created using VBA. I take it you aren't doing this from VBA? Also, has anything else changed recently with the PC? Does it make any difference if you shut down all other applications that are running to free up additional RAM?

Andrew

 

[wsharp]

Thanks for the reply and further questions....

When attempting to do this task, there were no other programs running, other than excel and acrobat, oh, "avast" was running, but it has been for the last couple of years. I will say that I have NOT tried to print a legal WORD doc., Though I have tested a legal sized WordPerfect document and as stated a legal size lotus 123 document and they both did fine. I doubt that memory is a problem, I have 2G available.

As to the workbook, each time I use the form, it is a different workbook. Whenever I open it, I immeadiately save it as something "new" to go with the paper file I am working on.

I am not in the loop to know what "VBA" stands for, so doubt that is the case as I said, this has been working fine for more than a year (the computer is only a year old itself). Prior to this computer, I was doing the same thing on a Win 98 2nd Ed. with the excel 2000 and acrobat 5.0. It did work well. That machine IS VERY short on memory. I can't expand it due to the memory having to be "matched" and I have not been able to locate any for sometime.

Lastly, the only things that have changed in the pc are the normal "updates" from microsoft. I don't keep track of when and what, but there have been updates since the machine last did these tasks correctly. I thought on that and I guess I dismissed it as we are dealing with microsoft updates and would hope they would be knowledgeable if their updates adversely affected their other software. Maybe that is not a good correlation.

Other than SP3 for XP, I believe all updates have been security matters or newer versions of some components (explorer, media player, etc.).

Anyway, will try the WORD test and see what happens. Any thoughts if it is a OFFICE vs. Adobe problem?

Thanks again,
Bill Sharp

 

[Andrew Fergus]

Hi Bill

If you create a brand new spreadsheet, which has nothing to do with your current spreadsheet, can you get a full image with this new, and completely different, spreadsheet?

Also, if you print to an A4 size, rather than legal - does that make any difference?

Understood re the PC RAM so that shouldn't be the issue. VBA is visual basic for applications that sits behind Excel - this is where you do macros and so forth to automate tasks. It sounds like you aren't using that....

I have a very similar set-up (Adobe Pro 6 & Office 2003) but unfortunately I cannot re-recreate the problem.

Andrew

 

[wsharp]

Andrew;

Thanks for the follow up. Since this is my system at work, I have had to try to fix and get work out the door also...add to that our metro area had a blackout for some reason...

ANYWAY, long way around the block...it is fixed and working, but I wish I knew why it was broke in the first place. Solution...without re-reading, I am not sure if you suggested this or not, but someone suggested I copy data from the worksheet and paste it into a new worksheet and see if that fixed it. I tried that and it worked. Took a little time to get all the spacing correct, not sure why line heights did not translate, but got both forms that I use to print to pdf with the entire image showing.

If you or anyone reading this knows why the cut-paste solution works OR if that triggers some knowledge as to what caused the problem in the first place...I would love to hear it.

Thanks and thanks to all that may have read the post.
Bill Sharp

 

[Andrew Fergus]

Hi Bill

I found your thread on another forum : http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?pid=37060

I suggested the copy > paste for the reason that if there is an issue associated with the workbook, but not the data, then copying the data and pasting into a new workbook often overcomes this problem (it also works for corrupt databases). It sounds like the spreadsheet was either corrupted in some way or just got its knickers in a twist....

At least you got it solved!!
Andrew