PowerPoint 2007 text editing slow, text cut off, text display or formatting problems, print, crash problems

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Problem

• Text display problems
• Incorrect text line breaks or formatting
• Misaligned/cut-off text
• Text blinking
• Text insertion cursor offset from actual point where text gets inserted when typed
• Bullet styles gallery blank or partially blank, bulleted text gets cut off
• Messages that "The printer cannot be found"
• VERY slow performance editing and selecting
• Crashing when launching PowerPoint
• Crashing when opening presentations created in earlier PowerPoint versions

Solution

These are common symptoms resulting from bad/corrupt/incompatible printer drivers or no installed printer drivers.

In nearly all cases, the quickest route to eliminating the problem is changing the default driver to one that is Microsoft certified for the Windows version. The printer drivers that ship with Windows are certified.

Instructions for installing printer drivers

You do not have to have a printer actually hooked up to the computer; you just need to install the driver software for the printer.

More information is available at these Microsoft knowledgebase pages:

• A 2007 Office program may stop responding when you try to print a document
• Error message when you try to start PowerPoint 2007: This application has failed to start because [file name] was not found
• Error message when you try to print slides or a presentation from PowerPoint 2007: The printer cannot be found

If you've installed a printer driver and still have text problems, make sure that you've got the needed fonts installed. Troubleshoot font problems.

If the font in question is a PostScript "flavored" OpenType (OT) font and you're seeing letters at 64pt and above jumbled together or underlines that appear higher than they should, have a look at this article by type expert Thomas Phinney.

As Phinney mentions, MS has created a hotfix for the problem as of mid-March, 2008. You can request the hotfix here.

Contents © 1995 - 2008 Stephen Rindsberg, Rindsberg Photography, Inc. and members of the MS PowerPoint MVP team. You may link to this page but any form of unauthorized reproduction of this page's contents is expressly forbidden.

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