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Printing won't work in Thunderbird 52.1.0 on Windows 10

  • 3 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Nigelroot

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Summary: Thunderbird 'thinks' a simple short text email (I've just written it) in print preview is 88 pages and if I print it I get one page with a 'Q' at the very top of the page. There are no special characters in the email, no graphics, no smileys, just text.

Background: Windows 10, avast, standard set up for home office, standard Acer hardware and HP inkjet, had it all for years, software kept up to date. I'm on UK settings including A4 paper.

Other symptoms: If I try and print the email to CutePDF writer Thunderbird produces the pdf, again of 88 pages but apparently without any text in it. No problems apart from Thunderbird: OpenOffice Writer prints OK, pdf page prints OK from Foxit. Had this a couple of days, perhaps since a Windows upgrade. I could go back to a restore point about 10 days ago, before upgrading Flash, but it seems odd that no-one else is reporting anything if that's the problem.

Very grateful for your ideas please.

Nigel

Summary: Thunderbird 'thinks' a simple short text email (I've just written it) in print preview is 88 pages and if I print it I get one page with a 'Q' at the very top of the page. There are no special characters in the email, no graphics, no smileys, just text. Background: Windows 10, avast, standard set up for home office, standard Acer hardware and HP inkjet, had it all for years, software kept up to date. I'm on UK settings including A4 paper. Other symptoms: If I try and print the email to CutePDF writer Thunderbird produces the pdf, again of 88 pages but apparently without any text in it. No problems apart from Thunderbird: OpenOffice Writer prints OK, pdf page prints OK from Foxit. Had this a couple of days, perhaps since a Windows upgrade. I could go back to a restore point about 10 days ago, before upgrading Flash, but it seems odd that no-one else is reporting anything if that's the problem. Very grateful for your ideas please. Nigel

Chosen solution

Thank you, it works well.

In case anyone else comes across this problem, in Thunderbird you get into the Config editor via menus: Tools, Options, Advanced and then the Config button bottom right, then it works per the article for Firefox.

The thing I tripped over first time is that when it's faulty, Thunderbird defaults to the FIRST printer on the list, in my case Cute PDF Writer, not the HP inkjet that I wanted to sort out, so the problem was solved when I set the Cute PDF Writer page height and width to -1, not when I set the HP page height and width to -1.

Thanks again for your help.

Nigel

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PS from Nigel, the person with the original problem. I've just opened up Gmail's web interface in Firefox and printed the email I sent from there. It printed well, so it's only Thunderbird that has the problem. Regards, Nigel

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Check this solution: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pages-appear-tiny-when-i-print-or-print-preview-firefox

(it's actually for Firefox, but should work also for tbird).

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Chosen Solution

Thank you, it works well.

In case anyone else comes across this problem, in Thunderbird you get into the Config editor via menus: Tools, Options, Advanced and then the Config button bottom right, then it works per the article for Firefox.

The thing I tripped over first time is that when it's faulty, Thunderbird defaults to the FIRST printer on the list, in my case Cute PDF Writer, not the HP inkjet that I wanted to sort out, so the problem was solved when I set the Cute PDF Writer page height and width to -1, not when I set the HP page height and width to -1.

Thanks again for your help.

Nigel