Expert: Amy - 9/7/2006

Question
Would appreciate your thoughts on this vexing problem.

I have a layout with a large text block filling about 2/3 of the
left-hand side of the landscape mode page. Along the right sied
I have a vertical column of text, one letter wide. The latter was
inserted using the vertical text tool.

When I go to print it, the initial PRINT dialog box shows the full
print preview exactly as it should be. The OK on this sends the
data to the printer; another PRINT dialog box then
appears...however, the initial vertical letters (especially the
capital letters) are missing. The printout also has the letters
missing.  All other text is perfect. I have inserted horizontal
letters and they come out perfectly.

The software is Illustrator CS and the printer is an Epson 6400. I
have tried everything I could think of to explain and correct his
but to no avail.

Can you help me?

Bill

Answer
Greetings Bill,

I'm going to have to go with printer driver issue on this one. Can't deal with this feature of AI somehow. That's my thought based on the fact that it only shows up on preview #2 and the printout.

Have you tried turning the fonts to outlines and printing the doc?

Curious, too, as to if it's the font. Try a different font in its place and see what happens.

Thirdly, I know my printer driver interface is full of "effects" and gizmos. You've probably been through every single page/screen of your driver and turned all these things off, right? Because if the outlines didn't work, I'd try turning EVERYTHING off. If that failed, I'd print a PDF document from AI CS and send that to the printer. Or, if you know how, generate a PS file and send that right to the printer.

Try some of these ideas and let me know!

-Amy Pace