FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  518 (20/06/06)

Q. I have Windows XP Home Edition SP2.  Recently, after a Word document has printed, the document disappears totally and the screen reverts to the desktop. If I don't remember to save the document before printing, it is lost.  Any ideas?

Liz Wright

A. There is a known bug in Word 2002, which causes it to crash when printing in the background after you have edited a header or footer, inserted a comment or run a macro. This was caused by a glitch in Office Service Pack 3 and the solution is to download the most recent Service Pack from Microsoft. There’s more about it in Microsoft Knowledgebase Article 3B821525. Otherwise it can be caused by a faulty printer driver -- try uninstalling and reinstalling your printer using the latest driver downloaded from the printer manufacturer’s website. In older versions of Word this can also happen if you open a Word document by clicking on a document icon in Windows Explorer or My Computer then select Print; after it has finished printing Word automatically closes.

Q. I have recently started receiving junk emails pushing something called ‘broadcastmail’, all of which have blank From and Subject lines. I have set Outlook to automatically delete this type of email via the junk mail folder, but would like to know if this is sufficient, and if there is any other action I should take.

Ted Hunter, via email

A. You, and it seems pretty well everyone else on the planet with an Internet connection has the misfortune to be on the receiving end of spam from this outfit, which uses false or ‘spoofed’ emails addresses and ‘zombie’ computers to do its dirty work. The trouble is, like so much Spam, the addresses these messages are sent from -- if it has one -- and the content of the email constantly changes, so automatic deletion using Outlook or Outlook Express provides only temporary respite. It is a massive problem and there is no easy answer. Installing sophisticated Spam filtering software, or subscribing to a Spam filtering service, can help. These monitor all of the incoming messages on your mail server (i.e. before they are downloaded onto your PC) and automatically delete Spam using a constantly updated blacklist. New features to be included in Windows Vista should also reduce the flow of rubbish but in the meantime the golden rule is never to reply to any of these messages as all you will be doing is confirming to the spammer that your email address is ‘live’ and you’ll just end up getting even more rubbish.

Q. I have a number of audio cassette tapes with amateur concert music, recorded some years ago. I wish to archive these onto CDs via my PC. Unfortunately, the stereo is situated some distance from the PC and movement of either is not a trivial task. I note that there seem to be many devices for streaming music wirelessly from a PC to a stereo, but not the other way round. Would something like Bluetooth be capable of sending stereo output to the PC line input, or can you recommend an alternative?
B Bennett

A. The quick, simple and cheap solution would be to buy a portable cassette player and connect that directly to your PC. Now that personal digital music players have taken over the personal stereo market you can pick up high-quality portable tape players from ebay for as little as £10. It is possible send audio ‘wirelessly’ from one location to another using a ‘video sender’, these are widely available from about £30 upwards. These are designed to send video and stereo audio signals from a VCR or DVD player to a TV in another room but there’s nothing to stop you using it just to send audio. Simply connect the audio output from your hi-fi to the sender’s transmitter module and the receiver’s stereo audio output goes to your PC’s audio line input.

Q. I have been trying to load a new font onto my PC but so far without success. I have copied the file into the Fonts folder and it shows up on the Fonts list in Word but it doesn’t seem to be accessible. Could the font be corrupt?

Dave Chalker, via email

A. I don’t think so. The font file is almost certainly okay but it needs to be properly installed before Windows and the other applications on your PC can use it. You’ve only missed one step and that is to open the Fonts folder in Windows, on the File menu click Install New Font then use the Browse button to locate the Font file (you may need to copy it to another folder first), highlight it and click OK.

Q. My eyesight is failing, I am not a very good typist and every now and again I find that I have pressed the Caps Lock key by accident. Is there some way of displaying on the screen whether or not the caps lock is on?

Annie Steward, via email

A. There is, and I’ll come to it in a moment but first I wonder if you have tried the various features in Windows to improve the size and legibility of your monitor display? Open Control Panel and click the Accessibility Options icon, then the Display tab check the item ‘Use High Contrast’ and the monitor will change to a large white on black display format. You can switch this function on and off using the keyboard shortcut Alt + Left Shift + PrtScn. Other high visibility/contrast display ‘schemes’ can be found in Display Properties. Right-click an empty area of the desktop, select Properties then the Appearance tab and the Colour Scheme drop-down menu.

Another thing to try is an audible bleeper for Caps Lock. It can also be found in Accessibility Options, this time on the Keyboard tab. Check the item ‘Use Togglekeys’ and your PC will bleep every time you press the Caps Lock key.

To display an on-screen Caps Lock warning try a neat little freeware program called DKOSD. Whenever you hit the Cap Locks key ‘Caps Lock On’ or ‘Caps Lock Off’ will appear in bold green capital letters in the middle of your monitor screen for a couple of seconds. 

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© R. Maybury 2006, 1306