CUSTOMER SERVICE MEMO CSTP0402

for 2004 Edition of HowardSoft's Tax Preparer®

Solutions for Laser Printers

(modified 2/17/2004) 

Background. Laser printers typically have built-in capabilities not found in other printers, which make them especially capable for printing under a broad variety of non-Windows operating systems in addition to Windows. They often include a wide range of built-in fonts and resolutions so that high-quality text printouts can be generated without relying on fonts provided by the operating system. However, the graphic forms that are built into Tax Preparer MUST use fonts that are totally under the control of Tax Preparer in order for the detailed graphics of tax forms to be properly printed. Among the symptoms that can indicate a problem are:

• dashed lines that are the wrong length (such as far too narrow or far too wide, especially noticeable on Schedule B)
• fonts that are the wrong style (such as the typewriter-style Courier or the newspaper-style Times Roman instead of the sans-serif Helvetica)
• fonts that are the wrong size (such as far too big or far too small)
• text that is misaligned with the graphic lines on the tax forms

There are two types of settings that are under your control -- those in the Windows operating system (print drivers) and those in the printer itself (front panel controls) -- as detailed below.

Check driver settings first. The default setting for the drivers for most laser printers is to use the fonts that are built into the printer whenever possible. However, tax forms must be printed with such precision that using built-in fonts can cause misalignment at the least and garbled printing at the worst. It is therefore very important that your printer use the fonts we supply rather than the ones built into the printer while using Tax Preparer. To ensure this you may have to change the settings for the print driver, as follows:

• Step 1: Start Tax Preparer for Windows. You must change your print driver settings with Tax Preparer, rather than your system Control Panel, so that the settings are always used by Tax Preparer, but have no effect on other software.
• Step 2: CHANGE Program Settings. In order to access your printer driver through Tax Preparer, your printout setting for Special(1=HPLaser,2=Windows) must be 2 for FILL-IN and other printout types you want to print through Windows.
• Step 3: Initiate a Tax Preparer printout. You can choose any form, but we recommend 1040 page 1 for the most complete test of the results of your changes. Do not click Ok when the Print Window appears. Instead, go to the next step.
• Step 4: Change Text Properties. On the Print Window from Step 3, click Properties. There is no universal location for the required settings, but they are usually located on the Print Quality tab, not the Fonts tab, for most HP laser printers. You may have to experiment with different settings because there is no industry standard for the meaning of various labels, but the following settings generally produce good printouts because they allow the use of the True Type fonts we automatically install when Tax Preparer is started, rather than the fonts that are built into the printer:
  • Print True Type as Bitmaps
  • Print True Type as Graphics
  • Always use True Type Fonts

  By contrast, the following settings generally produce unacceptable printouts:

  • Allow Substitutions for True Type fonts
  • Send True Type fonts according to Font Substitution Table.
  • Allow Subtitutions for Fastest Printing
• Step 5: Change Printer Resolution Properties. If the screen in Step 4 has a setting for Printer Resolution, you should use a setting of 300 dpi. This will usually often that Tax Preparer's fonts for the smallest typeface are used, so that dashed lines are the proper length. However, some printers require that this setting be changed on the front panel of the printer, as described last on this page. (Higher resolutions usually result in the use of the printer's built-in fonts, which lead to improper scaling.)
• Step 6: Approve settings and start printout. Once you have made the necessary changes, click Ok to approve the changes and exit the Properties window. Once you are returned to the main Print Window, click Ok to start the printout and see the results. Even if you don't want a printout now, this step is necessary to ensure that your settings are saved for your next use of Tax Preparer.

Check printer settings next. Sophisticated front panel controls are common in laser printers, allowing you to change settings without involving the computer or its operating system. While laser printers vary in their settings, the general idea of changing the settings is to prevent built-in fonts from interfering with Tax Preparer fonts. Therefore you should determine from your computer manual how to disconnect the built-in fonts whenever possible. For some printers it is the resolution that determines which fonts are used. Since Tax Preparer fonts are based on 300 dpi resolution while the fonts built into laser printers are typically based on 600 dpi or 1200 dpi resolution, changing the printer setting to use 300 dpi resolution can often solve the problem of interfering fonts.

Example for HP LaserJet 4000. While printers vary in their operation, instructions for this Hewlett-Packard printer may provide help with your printer as well. The following procedure will change the printer's resolution setting from 1200 dpi to 300 dpi so that the Tax Preparer fonts are used instead of the LaserJet's own fonts:

• Step 1: Press the Menu button until "Print Quality Menu" appears.
• Step 2: Press the Item button until "Resolution" appears.
• Step 3: Press the Value button until "300" appears.
• Step 4: Press the Select button.
• Step 5: Reboot your printer.

CAUTION: If you fail to reboot your printer before attempting to print, you will generally encounter the error message SITUATION 2: 79.00FE PRINTER ERROR.