So, as I am on the verge of ripping my hair out... lol ... I thought I would post here and hope for some HELP!



I have a document that I have open in Word 2003 (was created in Word 2010) and, the author has inserted a  symbol instead of a check box (using the Insert, Symbol) and, I have had NO luck getting it to print. If I print preview, it shows up. If I print to PDF, it shows up and if I print that PDF, it prints on the page but, I cannot get it to show up on the printed page IF I print directly from Word....which I have to do as I have inserted a Macro in that prints sequential numbers on each page that is printed.

I have looked in the options, googled till my fingers were raw and, I cannot find anything to fix this.

What I also tried was, to highlight each "symbol" and change the font to "Symbol" as the whole document was Times New Roman and, that didn't work either.

I cannot change this document in any way without it going through an approval process for a new revision so, changing the symbol to a check box is not an option.

Any ideas?

Was the original inserted as a checkbox content control rather than as a symbol?

Do you have all the fonts installed on your computer that were installed on the original? If not, is it possible to save the document in Word 2010 with the fonts?
Are you using a different printer?
Different operating system?

(The version of Word, by itself, should not make the difference you are seeing, in my experience.)

I'm not really sure as, it was a consultant that created the original document. Maybe if I try re-inserting the symbol on my PC, it might work? I can edit, just have to make sure it looks identical to what they sent and we have already printed (we printed these forms as a PDF before but, it isn't an option with the numbering sequence)

Well, i tried re-inserting the symbol but, it still won't print. It is as if the printer doesn't like the  symbol for some reason!! Back to hair ripping! LOL

I'm not sure that I am seeing, on screen what this symbol is supposed to look like. I can't fathom why someone would want what I am seeing anyway!

If you want me and others to see it try posting a screenshot (perhaps zoomed up first). To attach something without putting it online somewhere else, click on the "Go Advanced" button at the bottom of the posting window here and click on the paperclip.

The reason you can't print that symbol is that it's merely a display character Word inserts for an unsupported character in the font concerned. If you select one of those boxes and go to Insert|Symbol, you'll see that it's from Word's Symbol font, which has numerous such characters. These are not checkboxes, but unsupported characters. You will need to use Find/Replace to replace all of those characters with a proper box character. You will find some proper checkbox characters in the Wingdings font, for example.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]