On February 2,2010, I posted a problem under "Illegal Media Size" and received no response until today from a user with the same problem. I had noted a year ago that I was in the beta version and, silly me, thought the absence of response might indicate that the problem was fixed in the final release.



Well that thought was way off!! I have had the final Word 2010 for some time now, reloaded the driver, and the problem continues, I still cannot print "statement size" paper.

If anyone cares you can find the original post on 2/2/10 and perhaps advise what to do??

DRG

Hi DRG,

If you do a web search for 'illegal media size pcl xl error', you'll see many many HP users reporting similar problems to yours. The sad fact is that HP has a poor record at producing drivers that work with updated systems. This is especially so where OS updates are involved. If Word 2010 (which talks to the printer driver through the OS) breaks an HP driver, that just goes to show how non-compliant the driver is.

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

... for responding so quickly and pointing me in hopefully the right direction. I'll see if HP will respond, assuming I can find a way to get this in front of someone there who cares!

Thanks again!

Couple of months ago, I installed 38x brand new desktops with fully updated Win7 and MSOffice 2010 installed. They all access the HP Network printer HP 3010/15 but the error message 'illegal media size pcl xl error' shows on only 3x desktops. While another 2x desktops with the same specs have trouble with their WORD print outs being flushed to the right even if the margins are right.

If you are saying that HP drivers are to blame and being incompatible, then why it only randomly occur on several desktops? As I've said desktops specs are identical. HP drivers were installed without any error messages and the driver non-compatibility message we usually see did not show.

I believe these are MS related issues and should be addressed by MS.

Try to discuss this with all your tech team. We basically need exact answers to effectively use your product.

Humbly,

Chris

Hi Chris,

One might equally say that if all the PCs are the same and all work correctly with anything other than the HP drivers, then the HP drivers are at fault. That's what most people find. The fact that some (most) of your PCs seem to work correctly whilst others don't suggest there is some subtle difference in either the software or the hardware. It doesn't necessarily implicate MS Windows or Word. As I said in my previous post:
By comparison, problems with other printer manufacturers' drivers are rare. In fact, the complaints from HP printer users seem to outnumber all the others combined. And it's not only Win 7 that they have problems with. If Windows or Word was to blame, one would expect to see many more complaints from the users of non-HP printers.

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