Five things to consider

• 1. Please understand that WordPerfect makes much heavier use of the printer (actually the printer driver; see below) than most other programs. Check to make sure the printer is turned on and it is available to your computer. (Hint: Windows allows setting up User Profiles. Some use this to set up a separate profile for when printers are not available, such as when disconnected from a network.)
• 2. Some "printer" problems might be due to a missing or corrupt font. Fonts can be hardware (i.e., built into the printer) or software. If a font is missing, WordPerfect will substitute what it thinks is a close match; this might not be obvious until something appears "strange" -- such as text "pushed together," or text that extends beyond the margin, or text justification that is not what you expect. And fonts can be specified in the body text of the document as well as "upstream" in the default template. (WordPerfect is a "stream oriented" program, where codes take effect until discontinued, replaced, or removed by another code.) For other formatting issues see Why some documents seem to "spontaneously" or automatically reformat themselves when they are opened, printed, faxed, or shared between users. There are settings in WordPerfect that can cause reformatting, which can be mistaken for a problem with the printer.
• 3. Updating to the latest version and "build" of WordPerfect Office may solve some printer issues. Information on updating may be found here.
• 4. For problems that might involve the printer itself, such as a slow opening (loading) of the program or documents, failure to load, or strange video (or video-vs-printout) problems see the Corel support site at Http://support.corel.com
  • Answer ID 754014: Troubleshooting Printing problems with WordPerfect. This article, for WordPerfect 9 and later, contains various solutions (see the article for details) such as:
    • clear the print queue because "a jammed print queue will prevent WordPerfect from opening or will cause the application to stall while attempting to print";
    • remove any offline printers;
    • restore WordPerfect stored printer information;
    • add an emulation (printer) driver;
    • (for WP10+) add a shortcut to the WordPerfect print engine in the Windows Start folder; and
    • remove and reinstall your printer's printer driver.
      • A printer driver is a small software module supplied by the printer manufacturer and is installed when you install your printer. Printer drivers function to "talk" to a specific printer and are also heavily used by WordPerfect to match the screen display with the printer's output to produce true WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") on your monitor. Printer driver information, along with a lot of other information, is stored with the document.
      • Note: Most printer manufacturers give instructions on their sites about deleting old drivers and installing new ones. Generally, installing a new or updated printer driver is as easy as downloading a file from the manufacturer and double-clicking on it. Typically it then will set up some files in a separate (temporary) folder and install the printer driver from there. Usually this takes only a minute or two.
        • Caveat: Sometimes reverting to an earlier version of the driver is better. For example, Many users find that the HP PCL 5e driver works better than the HP PCL 6 driver (but this author has found at least one case where the opposite was true). Both versions usually can be installed at the same time; they will show up in the File, Print dialog as separate entries.
      • More precisely, here is a way to do delete and reinstall a printer driver in Windows XP (note that the procedure may differ slightly in other operating systems, so if you are unsure of how to proceed you should check the printer manufacturer's website and/or the Microsoft support site for instructions):
        • First, obtain the latest printer driver for your model of printer and for your operating system from the printer manufacturer's web site. (The installation CD that came with the printer might be out of date.)
        • Open the Windows Control Panel with Start, Settings, Control Panel. In the Printers and Faxes module, click on the printer icon or name. [In Windows XP you can also click Start, Settings, Printers and Faxes.]
        • Press <Delete> to delete the printer name (or icon).
        • Still in the Printers and Faxes dialog, click File, Server Properties, Drivers tab, and delete the printer driver. (This second step deletes the actual printer driver.)
        • Exit from the Control Panel, back to the Windows desktop.
        • Re-install the printer using the updated printer driver.
  • Answer ID 762675: How to re-establish the communication between WordPerfect and your printer.
• 5. There are other printer issues that might cause slow launching of WordPerfect:
  • From the Corel support database at http://suport.corel.com, Answer ID 753658:
    • "WordPerfect® is slow launching."
    • Answer: "This can happen when there is at least one printer in the Windows Control Panel listed as Offline or Not Ready. This is due to WordPerfect trying to aquire page definitions from a printer that it cannot connect to but [is] listed on your Control Panel as installed. To resolve this issue, remove the reference to the offline printer(s) from your Windows Control Panel."
  • And from Answer ID 756415:
    • "Why is WordPerfect® slow to launch when sharing the default printer?"
    • Answer: "When launching WordPerfect® the splash screen stays up for a very long time before it finally brings you into the application. This problem can happen when you have your default printer shared on a network [with] other computer systems."

If you have specific problems not listed on this page or anywhere on this website, you can try posting a question on the Corel Newsgroup for your specific version of WordPerfect (go to www.corel.com and look under "Support" for their news group links), or visit WordPerfect Universe at www.wpuniverse.com. 

See also the WordPerfect Universe FAQs, "Troubleshooting Printing Problems." "Install an Apple Laserwriter printer to troubleshoot," and "Printing, faxing, emailing - avoiding reformatting problems" - the latter is a tip on WordPerfect Universe that recommends using ScanSoft's PaperPort as the default printer, whereupon you can drag a PP file to one of the printer icons on the PP desktop; this should prevent reformatting by the printer. [Before posting a message on either the Corel newsgroups or WordPerfect Universe, you should read "Help Tips," here to learn how to get the most from them.]

See also: Resources for troubleshooting printer issues in Windows XP and Advanced troubleshooting for network printing problems in Windows XP.

Some of the following items were gleaned from the internet with Google Groups, using "wordperfect" in the Search field, along with terms such as "~fax ~reformat" (the tilde in front of the word will cause a search for similar words such as "faxing," etc.).

• See this page.

• Many of WordPerfect problems printing to the "wrong" paper tray are solved by creating or editing paper definitions that point to the proper paper tray. Here is a thread on WordPerfect Universe ("Overcome the WP10 Printer Bug that only allows printing to the Default Tray!") that offers solutions .
• See this WordPerfect Universe thread, "WP 11 and the changing page setup problem," which explains how to use the Current Printer Only setting when creating new label definitions, especially on networked printers.
• See "Print your letterhead page from one printer tray, and second and subsequent pages from another tray."
• See "Merging multiple-page letters using letterhead paper for page 1 and plain paper for subsequent pages."

• Does WordPerfect (version 10 or later) print multiple copies of the document or envelope? Perhaps you have un-ticked (disabled) the print option, "Reset number of copies each time," on the File, Print, Advanced tab. Check that box to force WordPerfect to change back to single copies.
• Can't print selected text in WP11, WP12, WPX3? Disable the "Auto generate" checkbox in Tools, Reference.
• Cursor jumps. When saving a document, does the cursor move to the bottom of the screen in WP11, WP12, WPX3? Same solution as above: Disable the "Auto-generate" checkbox in Tools, Reference.
• "Slow" printing time. Users sometimes notice that it can take several seconds for WordPerfect to start printing a document, which doesn't seem to happen with Microsoft Word.
  • From the Corel WP11 newsgroup (6/1/07, posted by Steve Shattuck):
  • Question:
    • "I've always wondered why, when I click to print a document, WP usually freezes for 3-7 seconds while it gets the printer going. Whereas MS Word does not freeze when you print. Is there a workaround?"
  • Answer:
    • "Actually the answer is that WP makes no attempt to format the printer output until you actually print. Word keeps a printable image of your document formatted in the background. Basically just a difference in programming approach. There are strengths and weaknesses to each approach.
    • Additionally WordPerfect tries to emulate a Desktop Publishing program and as such places each and every letter on a page individually while Word places words, sometimes full pages in a single printer stream. You can validate this if you look at the size of a WordPerfect spool file vs. a Word spool file for the same document. The WordPerfect file is MUCH bigger, and thus takes more time to generate."
• Getting errors when launching WordPerfect? WordPerfect "hanging" on you? See this Corel support database article: Answer ID 753726.