[yoyo52]

I've had this problem for some time, but today I had it in spades.

It goes like this. I type a document in Word then print it. The Epson dialog window comes up and I click print. The document spools to the driver. As soon as the spooling is over--in a split second--the computer crashes. When I restart, I'm told that the printing process had been interrupted, and do I want to continue. I click Yes, and the printing actually takes place.

The problem does not occur every time I try to print, by the way, so I don't think that running Conflict Catcher would help.

My equipment is as follows:

G4 AGP 400 MHz running OS 9.04;

Interex USB 4-port powered hub, to which the printer is connected;

Epson 740, running the latest driver update and with lots of memory allocated to the Epson Monitor 3.

Today I was really concerned because I was mail merging a document and the crashing just kept repeating itself and repeating itself. I should add that at some point MacsBug would not restart the computer and using the restart button led to a frozen splashscreen window. That's why today I got particularly concerned.

I've never had the problem with any other application besides Word.

If anyone can suggest anything that I can do to stop this from taking place, I would be grateful to the nth degree.

I have always had the same deal. USB Stylus 760, Serial Stylus 800, Word crashes 1/3 times just after spooling, unexpectadly quits. Its the only program to do this.

I had the same problem with Word and Corel PrintHouse. Increasing the amount of Virtual Memory solved my problem. I have OS9.04 on a TAM with over 200MB of VM allocated.

This happens to me only if I make an Excel selection, copy and paste it into Word, then try to print from Word before deselecting the selection in Excel. If I remember to deselect the selection in Excel before printing in Word, Word prints fine. Does your spooling problem occur if you are using Word only and no other Office app?

[tedgrigg]

I am glad others are having this problem with Word 98 and an Epson 740 with seril connection running OS 9.04 on a G3 266 Wallstreet Powerbook.

Mine also tends to crash after spooling. Sometimes the computer freezes after I initiate the command to print. It acts like it is trying to find something because the hard drive spins for about 15 seconds then everything locks up--including the cursor.

Right now I can get all Microsoft programs to print (but it will eventually start freezing again as history repeats itself)b, but I can't solve one lingering problem.

The printer only prints about 80% of what I see in the print preview. This is clipping at the bottom 20% of all pages. This is not the known problem of clipping the right hand side of the page. I have applied all of the patches and nothing has worked to fix this clipping issue.

The cut off at the bottom of the page also occurs in IE 5 and Excel. Mariner Write does not display any of these problems.

Epson tech support could not resolve the problem and agreed to give me a trade in on the 740 for a 900 serial printer compatible unit.

I think it is primarily a problem with Microsoft Office 98 combined with an incompatability with the 740 Epson drivers. Microsoft Office 98 needs a major update now and the needed overhaul to fix this program is at least a year overdue. If I had the choice, I would drop all Microsoft Office 98 programs in favor of Mariner Software products or Nisus. But the PC world requires that I use a cross platform program for spreadsheets and Word processing.

I am skeptical about any Epson printer working correctly all of the time with the present Microsoft line of products.

------------------

The Professor

[pendragon]

I too had the system crash problem about half the time when printing from Word or PowerPoint and thought I was the only one. I recently disabled RamDoubler 9 and turned Virtual Memory back on and all seems fine, but I do not know if this is a fix or just coincidence.

Your thoughts and comments most welcome.

Many thanks,
Harv