Email header printed on separate page

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Level 1

13 points

Email header printed on separate page

Hi,

I have some users that are having a problem with printing emails.

On occasion, these users have emails that print the "header" on the first page, and the rest of the email starts on a new page. This does not occur all the time, but appears to be limited to 3 or 4 persons.

The printers involved are different, the senders are different, and even the networks are different. There seems to be only the common thread that all have upgraded to Mavericks and this has only begun since upgrading to Mavericks.

I have searched the forums and only find one reference to a solution suggesting a font issue, and even in that thread several contributors indicate the solution does not work for them. It is difficult to determine what search parameters should be used.

Raw source comparisons of emails that do not print provide any common issues WRT font, character set, or source mail client.

The systems are of various ages, with the prime one being Late 2012 iMac 27". This user has the greatest need to print copies of emails, so seems to be the most affected.

Some users probably don't report the issue because it is intermittent.

The Preview shows the email will print incorrectly, and an email that presents incorrectly will continue to do so. In other words, the issue is with a particular email and that email will continue to print incorrectly.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

JD

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)

Posted on Sep 30, 2014 9:41 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Sep 30, 2014 2:10 PM in response to Jim Dysart

In the print window, try reducing the scale to less than 100%.

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Answer 2

Jim Dysart Author

Level 1

13 points

Sep 30, 2014 5:08 PM in response to Eric Root

Thank you for your suggestion Eric.

It does reduce the "empty" space from the remainder of the page thus allowing some of the body of the email to print on the bottom of the first page.

The question remains however, "What causes that very large blank space (always the equivalent of a page break at 100%) to occur in some emails on some computers?"

There must be some combination of factors that create this, whether it includes fonts, view options, printer drivers, or file management in email connections.

Is anyone else having this problem?

JD

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Oct 1, 2014 7:54 AM in response to Jim Dysart

You are welcome.

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Answer 4

Jim Dysart Author

Level 1

13 points

Oct 7, 2014 6:06 PM in response to Jim Dysart

Hi,

After some significant trial and error, I was able to reproduce the problem on my own system. In my case, I did this by setting the Message font to 18.

The user that had the greatest difficulty was using Tahoma 18 for both Message List font and Message Font.

After trying a number of combinations, including the default System font 12, Helvetica 12, and Menlo Regular 11, on my own system using a known problem email, I established that the only change required when I emulated the user's settings was to reduce the Message Font size from 18. The actual font was not the issue, but the size was.

This has been a long process. perhaps this issue, which only presents itself in Mavericks, can be addressed by a Mail, or OS update.

I will mark this as a valid answer to my own question so others searching may find it.

JD

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Answer 5

Jim Dysart Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 26, 2015 12:10 PM in response to Jim Dysart

Hi,

I have run into this issue again, and this time fonts are not involved.

I have posted the following on another thread.

"I now have upgraded to Yosemite, and the issue still exists. (This time not font related)

I have just analyzed the Raw Source of three emails, all of which were sent from the same source within three minutes.

Every aspect of the raw source is the same in each of the three emails.

However, one of the three prints the body of the message on the second page, leaving only the header on the first. The other two emails print as expected.

By transferring these three emails to another computer as attachments, I can also confirm that the issue still exists on that computer, therefore they are not computer or printer specific.

The space you refer to appears to be created by some sort of spacing setup that Mail is inserting. Others have already noted that printing at a smaller percentage reduces the unwanted space, therefore it is not a "page break" per se"

JD

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Answer 6

Jan 27, 2015 10:08 AM in response to Jim Dysart

I had exactly the same problem, message header & body on different pages. Grrrr! I followed suggestions in this thread to change the message font (Mail preferences -> Font & Colors -> Message font). I had mine set to Arial 14, I changed it to Arial 12 and wow, message header & body were on the same page in print preview. Playing around, I changed the font back to Arial 14 and incredibly message header & body remained on the same page.

Somehow the mere act of changing the message font in mail preferences, even if set back to original settings, seemes to have sorted out this annoying "feature".

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