Not that it matters much ...

[french frank]

... but I am quite interested …

I often draft things on my MacBook downstairs, then send them upstairs wirelessly to my (Mac) desktop, and print them out [MacBook doesn't like printing wirelessly].

Last night I sent a folder of five documents upstairs, and printed them off. But when I took the print-outs downstairs, nearly every individual file on the MacBook was differently paginated (line endings and page endings didn't coincide).

Checking with MacBook and desktop alongside each other this morning, it is indeed the case: the files have the same number of words, but the page format is different, even though the one is supposed to be a copy of the other.

Am I being dense in not being able to understand why? (Tabs and fonts are identical)

[It only mattered temporarily, because I thought I had brought down an earlier version of the print-outs]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Are the margins identical?

[french frank]

Are the margins identical?

Yes, I meant margins, not tabs :-)

I've just tried sending the same file again and the same thing happens. The format of the copied file on the iMac differs from the one on the MacBook

[MrGongGong]

Are you running the same version of the software on both machines ?

[Stunsworth]

Is one set to a page size of A4 and the other US Legal?

Do the two differ when you open them in the word processor?

[french frank]

Are you running the same version of the software on both machines ?

Yes to that, OS and Word.

Is one set to a page size of A4 and the other US Legal?

Do the two differ when you open them in the word processor?

That may be it! Must check. Backson

[french frank]

Nope, both A4. Yes, they are different when I open the file: the print-out is the same as I see on the iMac. Different from the MacBook. I had just assumed that a COPY would be an exact COPY. Is it being interfered with by the internet? (

I ought to try transferring it to a flash drive first, rather than emailing to me. But really, I have a lot to do ...

[Dave2002]

... but I am quite interested …

I often draft things on my MacBook downstairs, then send them upstairs wirelessly to my (Mac) desktop, and print them out [MacBook doesn't like printing wirelessly].

Last night I sent a folder of five documents upstairs, and printed them off. But when I took the print-outs downstairs, nearly every individual file on the MacBook was differently paginated (line endings and page endings didn't coincide).

Checking with MacBook and desktop alongside each other this morning, it is indeed the case: the files have the same number of words, but the page format is different, even though the one is supposed to be a copy of the other.

Am I being dense in not being able to understand why? (Tabs and fonts are identical)

[It only mattered temporarily, because I thought I had brought down an earlier version of the print-outs]

What package are you using to create the text?

I think the issue is that Word (or indeed also some/most other word processors) reformats the text when it "sends" the file for printing. The way round this is to convert each file to PDF, then send that upstairs, and then print the PDF file. The result should then be identical with what you expect. I think the reason is perhaps to do with the printer drivers on the different machines rendering the text differently. If you work with PDF, then once the PDF has been created it should, subject to scaling and a few other factors, create a rendering of the text file which always looks pretty much the same. On a Mac, you print each file to PDF on the downstairs machine, then send the PDFs upstairs.

Even then there might be a few problems though. The two machines should have compatible font sets, but generally this should not be an issue with most of the standard fonts - and that includes some quite esoteric ones. Images might also complicate things further, though normally once embedded in a PDF file they are OK.

I quite frequently send files to a print shop for printing, and I'd never even dream of sending a Word file - I always use PDF. Otherwise the formatting is almost certain to be disrupted and not what I want to see printed. I hope this solves the problem, and also provides a useful procedure for the future.

[french frank]

Thanks, Dave. The pdf route will be the solution (I do covert most things to pdf but hadn't bothered for routine print-outs - and I hadn't noticed the problem before).