Some Printer Drivers May Show Screen Fonts as Printer Fonts

ID: Q74281

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 2.x, 3.0, 4.0, 4.0a, 5.0

SUMMARY

Using the built-in fonts on a dot-matrix printer when printing from Microsoft Excel speeds up printing, helps prevent garbled printouts, and produces superior output quality when compared to that obtained from using screen fonts.

When the Printer Fonts check box is checked in the Format Font dialog box in Microsoft Excel, screen fonts may still be included in the list of available fonts. During printer troubleshooting, it is wise to ensure that the fonts being used on a worksheet are NOT screen fonts.

Note: version 5.0 does not have a Printer Fonts check box to select. To confirm whether the font you are using is a screen font or printer font, highlight the cell with the text in question and choose Cells from the Format menu, then select the Font tab. The fonts with a printer symbol beside them are printer fonts. The fonts with no symbol to the side are for screen display only. The fonts with the stylized TT, are TrueType fonts and will be used on both your printer and your screen. (You can also refer to the bottom line of the Font tab for a description of the font type.)

MORE INFORMATION

Windows dot-matrix printer drivers are designed to print installed screen fonts if the aspect ratio of the installed fonts is similar to the aspect ratio of the printer. Most dot-matrix printers are square-pixel devices (that is, the horizontal resolution on the printer is the same as the vertical resolution). These printers can use fonts from the B (60 x 60 dpi), C (120 x 120 dpi), E (VGA/96 x 96 dpi), and F (8514a/120 x 120 dpi) font sets. As a result, users with VGA, Super VGA, and 8514/a displays are especially likely to see these fonts. The B and C font sets are not automatically installed by Windows 3.0, so they will not appear frequently.

Generally, these printer drivers will display their true printer fonts with "cpi" values. For example, the Epson drivers show several "Roman nn cpi" fonts, and the Okidata drivers display "Courier nn cpi" (where "nn" is the number of characters per inch on the font). Note that a font named Courier without any cpi value will be a screen font, not a printer font. Thus, fonts whose names contain "nn cpi" are generally true printer fonts.

Another way to find true printer fonts is to uncheck the Printer Fonts box, look at the list of fonts, check the box again, and then look for fonts that were not listed when Printer Fonts was not checked. These fonts will probably be built-in fonts on the printer.

REFERENCES

"User's Guide," version 5.0, pages 206-207
"User's Guide 1," version 4.0, pages 216-217
"User's Guide," version 3.0, pages 184-185
"Reference Guide," version 2.1, pages 305-306

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Last Reviewed: March 22, 1999