I need help troubleshooting a weird artifact on a friends Vaio laptop.

She's running Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Outlook (part of
Office 2003, ver 11). Often, she gets emails with attachments.

When she prints out an email from a few people she works with, a
dialog box for her HP 6500 printer shows up, she hits print and she
gets what she wants, which is the email with the NAME of the attached
file there on the top, followed by the message itself. This way, when
she saves the printed emails (how quaint) she has a record of which
files were attached.

The problem is that when she chooses to print most of the other emails
she gets, a DIFFERENT dialog box for the HP shows up, and these print
WITHOUT listing which files are attached.

Same print command, same printer, same session, different outcomes.

The cool thing is that the behavior matches the sender. That is,
certain senders always get the first dialog box and always print the
names of the file attached, and certain senders always get the second
dialog box and always DON'T print the names of the file attached.

I have seen this with my own two eyes, or I wouldn't believe it.

So, the question is: where is the preference setting that can make
them all the same? How do I set it? How do I make it stick?

---

Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 24 May 2005 20:15 PDT

Hi sethgodin,

It may be an issue with just HTML emails and that would explain why
your friend has the problem with some emails and not others.

1) Try this:

Open Outlook.
Go to: Tools / Options Preferences tab
Click the E-Mail options button.
Put a check mark by: "Read all standard mail in plain text".
Shut down and restart Outlook.

2) If that doesn't help, try this:

Open the email.
Select File / Page Setup / Memo Style.
Delete everything in the header and footer fields. 
Click OK.

3) Does she have SP1?  Read this:

Outlook 2003 Service Pack 1
"SP1 corrects an issue that has annoyed many Outlook users--attachment
names didn't print if the message was HTML. Now, attachment names are
printed for all message formats when you print out your email. Another
change in printing means you no longer need to open an HTML message to
print it, you can select and print all messages from the message
list."
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2003/ol2003sp1.htm

4) Third-party solution:

Auto Print add-in for Outlook
"Prints the title and the name of attachments in addition to the email itself"
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook/Auto-Print.asp

Auto Print
Prints the title and the name of attachments in addition to the email itself"
http://www.yousoftware.com/perform/autoprint.php

Please let me know if anything helped!
hummer

---

Clarification of Question by sethgodin-ga on 27 May 2005 18:22 PDT

hummer, you  nailed it.

please bill me!

Terrific news, sethgodin, thank you for letting me know, I really
appreciate it. I was wondering how your friend was getting along,
which solution worked, number one?

Sincerely,
hummer

>>>

Here is my list again, to make it official -

It may be an issue with just HTML emails and that would explain why
your friend has the problem with some emails and not others.

1) Try this:

Open Outlook.
Go to: Tools / Options Preferences tab
Click the E-Mail options button.
Put a check mark by: "Read all standard mail in plain text".
Shut down and restart Outlook.

2) If that doesn't help, try this:

Open the email.
Select File / Page Setup / Memo Style.
Delete everything in the header and footer fields. 
Click OK.

3) Does she have SP1?  Read this:

Outlook 2003 Service Pack 1
"SP1 corrects an issue that has annoyed many Outlook users--attachment
names didn't print if the message was HTML. Now, attachment names are
printed for all message formats when you print out your email. Another
change in printing means you no longer need to open an HTML message to
print it, you can select and print all messages from the message
list."
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2003/ol2003sp1.htm

4) Third-party solution:

Auto Print add-in for Outlook
"Prints the title and the name of attachments in addition to the email itself"
http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Outlook/Auto-Print.asp

Auto Print
Prints the title and the name of attachments in addition to the email itself"
http://www.yousoftware.com/perform/autoprint.php

well done. the process was delightful as well

Dear sethgodin,

Thank you so much, I'm happy you are happy and glad that balance has
been restored to your friend's printing universe.

Sincerely,
hummer