“Occasionally I have experienced issues with printing documents, trees, or reports. They are formatted correctly and look great on-screen, but don’t print out as they should. Some even contain ‘garbage fonts.’”

—A curious genealogist

Clean and easy printing IS possible, inside and outside of Family Tree Maker.

It can be frustrating to try to fix printer problems on your own, given today’s complex hardware/software relationships. Here are some overall settings and troubleshooting tips that will help you get the best results when printing the culmination of your genealogy research.

Global Settings in Windows 95
If you run into printing problems, the first thing you should always do is restart your machine and try again. Some printer drivers (and programs) stay in your Task List, taking up varying chunks of memory, even when you aren’t printing. I have even found that some printers will eventually cause my resources to fall so low that Windows 95 crashes. If you have the same problem after restarting, press and hold down [CTRL] + [ALT], then hit [DELETE]. With Windows 95, the task list will come up and you should “End Task” on everything other than “Explorer” and “Systray.” Then launch Family Tree Maker and print again.

Garbled Reports?
If your reports (or trees) contain unusual characters, try the following: when in the particular view that gives you trouble, from the Format menu, select “Text, Font, Style, and Size.” On the left, select all items to be formatted (click on the topmost item, hold down [SHIFT], and click on the last item). Change the font and size to a different font than the current settings. Then try to print. If you still have trouble, try one more font. Fonts can become corrupt occasionally, and this is a good test for font corruption. If you find that other fonts work, reinstall Windows or your font package to restore the integrity of your fonts (see your Windows manual for more details).

If you try three different fonts with the same results, go to “Help” in Family Tree Maker, then click on “System Information” (in versions 4.0 or higher). In the lower-left corner, click on the drop-down list and choose “ftw.ini” (the Family Tree Maker file which controls aspects of the program when it launches). This will launch Notepad and open the ftw.ini. Under the heading “Options,” you will see an option for “DeleteStyles=TRUE” with a semicolon (;) in front of it. Remove the semicolon, save, and exit the ftw.ini. Then restart Family Tree Maker. These steps will temporarily clear the report of formatting (in case something damaged it). Try the report again. When finished, you will need to go back and put the semi-colon back in to preserve future formatting changes.

And It’s NEVER a BAD Idea . . .
. . . to update or reinstall your printer driver. Even if no printing issues occur anywhere else, programs use the print drivers differently. You may only see problems in one program or with only one feature. Your printer manufacturer’s website will have explicit instructions for how to update or reinstall the printer driver. Special note: rename or delete your old driver first, as some drivers do not install over an existing one. Once you set the new driver as the default printer, you will find this solves many of the little issues getting in the way of printing your genealogy research.

Heather Mietz is the technical support supervisor at the Banner Blue Division of Brøderbund Software, Inc. and regularly assists users in making the most of their genealogy software. She also writes technical and informational columns for the Family Tree Maker magazine and FamilyTreemaker.com.