Ms. Compy Fix-It: Tackling PowerPoint’s Manhattan Skyline

Hi folks!

Ms. Compy Fix-It here!  Come to your (potential) rescue once again.

Today’s topic is one I’m happy to say has been resolved: Manhattan skylines in PowerPoint Print Previews.

Never heard of them?  Well, some people have called them that because they are vertical bars that are not in your document, but suddenly appear when you print or hit Print Preview.  Depending how many you have, you can end up with quite a dramatic print job.

I encountered them when trying to print a coworker’s slide, and honestly was surprised they showed up in the Print Preview – I thought this might be one of those weird printer configuration/”it’s not us, it’s your printer” Microsoft kind of issues, but I was wrong.

I did some digging, and was surprised to not find very much that was helpful.  I looked closely at the bars and could see they all seemed to stem downward from a title.  Have a look below.  I deleted all but the titles, as the rest is irrelevant.

I thought maybe it had to do with text box fill, but that came up empty.  The clue that pushed me to the Ms. Compy Fix-It idea came from this link: http://www.mombu.com/computer_design/acrobat/t-unwanted-vertical-lines-on-screen-and-on-print-3586463.html from sharon_bloor.  She suggested it was a text issue, and although the font didn’t appear strange or particularly new, I thought it was worth a try to just Ctrl+A (highlight all) and change the font to Calibri.  Sure enough, when I hit Print Preview, the bars were gone.

Hope this helps someone else!!

Yours in PowerPoint suffering fixing,

Ms. Compy Fix-It  🙂

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A Word of Grace (December 2006)

it’s in her style
paths of words streaming
seeming
beaming
their peace upon us all
as we sing out delight
at the voice in our heads
perhaps mouthed in pain
or wreathing
or the simple hurt of breathing
barely there and yet
a final stanza’s set
forgiving all we weren’t

unopened in the eyes of many
sitting all alone
in waiting and impatience
wondering at such
use of passive tense
for not all eyes can see
splendid verbose beauty
but sit here we

gliding fingers highlight text
whose passion rises ours
left only to second-guess
whose life personified
yours or his
hers or mine
ignorant of time
and so it settles
her adorning mind

    

    

Copyright L.M. 2006.

(My sister had a different interpretation for this poem when she read it; she thought it was about the Virgin Mary….. have another read and you might see why she, and I now too, can glean that meaning from it…..)