10.9.1: Mail 7.1 screws up Print layout / formatting

Mail 7.1 in Mac OS X 10.9.1 screws up the layout of Messages you try to Print.

The two most common symptoms are that:

1) Blank space is inserted after the Headers and before the first line of the body of the message, so that the body of the message starts on the 2nd page. These are apparently blank lines (not a Page Break) because if you reduce the scaling below 100% the body of the message starts to show on the bottom of the 1st page, but still with a large chunk of bogus, blank space between it an the headers. And,

2) Extra blank pages are printed at the end of the message. This could be 1 to several blank pages. The number of extra blank pages is constant for each message, but differs between messages. These DO appear to be Page Breaks -- not simply a large chunk of blank lines.

These problems happen regardless of which printer is selected -- even happening if you Print via "Save As PDF".

These problems are NOT cured by Resetting the Printing System and then re-installing the printers.

For problem (1), the error seems to be uniquely associated with the use of "US Letter" Paper Size -- and only when used in Portrait orientation. If you switch to Landscape orientation, or if you use Portrait orientation with either US Legal Paper Size (which is larger) or A4 Paper Size (which is smaller) the bogus blank space after the Headers goes away.

However, problem (2) is NOT altered by switching either Paper Size or orientation. You still get the same number of bogus, blank pages at the end.

So far, I've only seen problem (1) when attempting to print Messages saved in my Sent folder. Problem (2) appears both with messages in the Inbox and Sent folders.

These problems only ever appear when the Message is printed. Messages viewed on screen have no such issues. The print formattting problems appear regardless of whether you Print the Message directly from the list of Messages in the Mail folder, or if you first double click on the Message to open it in its own window and THEN Print it.

Note that I have "Organize by Conversation" *NOT* selected in the view menu, so Reply and Forward messages include the prior text attached at the end -- forming one, longer Message. However, both problems (1) and (2) are exhibited on Messages which are comprised of a single Message *AND* Messages which included embedded text from prior Messages in their Reply or Forward chains. NOTE: Problem (1) only seems to show between the FIRST Headers and the start of the Message body -- not between any embedded Headers and the following text of their attached, Reply or Forward content.

Both problems also show both on Messages with attachments and Messages without attachments.

Has anyone found a way to cure these two problems?

Of course you can workaround problem (2) by adjusting the Print dialog to only print the non-blank pages. And you can kinda sorta work around problem (1) by selecting a Paper Size other than US Letter and then making judicious application of scaling in the Paper Handling sub-portion of the Print dialog, but these are manual steps you need to do DIFFERENTLY for EACH Message you want to print.

Deep sigh....

--Bob