Please remember to backup your client names  and birth dates regularly!

Problem: Prints a few?then Stops Printing.
 

Background:
If you mark several names in the name list for printing, clicked print, and once the printing begins, it stops unexpectedly, there are two likely  causes, first you have run out of hard drive disk space on drive C: during printing, or News of  the Past may be having a memory sharing conflict  with your printer driver and other software running  in the background.

An unfortunate effect of having an error during printing  is that it may crash News of the Past and corrupt the customer name list. This might cause you to  need to uninstall and re-install News of the Past, and restore your client names from a  backup file (and we hope you have a backup.)

When you select several names for printing from News  of the Past's name list, the program creates a  print file on your hard drive for each name. The  program then sends the print files to windows print manager. Windows print manager processes the print files and sends them to your printer for printing one at a time. If you do not have enough hard drive space available at time of printing, the program will lockup. Spectrum Unlimited suggests  that you have at least 10 megabytes of free hard  drive space on drive C: when running News of the Past.

Backups
Please make regular backups of your client data  in News of the Past. Depending on the version you have, their is button titled export (main  screen, lower right corner) and/or backup. Use this feature to make regular backups of your client  data. After entering a list of names, do a backup. If you need to un-install and re-install News  of the Past you can restore (or import) your client names from a current backup.

Troubleshooting
First, being sure no other programs are running  in the background when printing. You may also want to try starting windows in safe mode when printing client birthday greetings with News of  the Past.

Additional solutions include the following:

?  Try another printer driver.
? Try another printer.
? Try the program on another computer.
? Check that your printer is turned on.
? Check that your printer has paper.
? Check that your printer is plugged into  your computer printer port.
? Check that your printer does not have  error messages. If their is an error message, please correct the related problem and try printing  again.

Assuming that you went through the checklist above and  News of the Past is still locking up during printing,  we provide 3 additional options. Option 1 suggests  you avoid using the name list feature and print  greetings one at a time. Option 2 suggests you try printing with the printer off line. Option 3 suggests you try windows troubleshooting system to detect problems.

Option 1. Print One At A Time  (do not use the name list feature)

Avoid  using the name list feature altogether.
Enter one name and birth date and click print, and repeat for each client.

Option 2. Printer On Pause  (printing with News of the Past closed)

Try  putting your printer on pause, then run News of the Past and send print jobs to the printer driver while your printer is off line, then close News  of the Past and release the printer pause whereby  letting the print jobs go to the printer with News of the Past turned off. This option sometimes  works if the problem with printing is related  to a major memory conflict with another program on your computer.

Printing with News of the Past turned off.
(Applies if you are printing one greeting, or  more using the name list option.)

1. Click windows Start button (lower left corner),  move the mouse pointer to Settings, and click  Printers.

2. Double click the left mouse button on the default  printer?it?s the printer with a black circle with  check mark on it to open the printer settings window.

3. Looking along the top menu bar, find the word  Printer?click it, and from the pull down menu, click on Pause Printing This puts a check mark next to the menu option?pause printing.

4. Minimize the printer driver window, run News of  the Past, mark names in the name list, click print?then  close News of the Past.

Open the printer driver window (as described in steps 1 ? 3 above) click on Pause Printing whereby un-checking that feature and releasing the printer driver  to un-spool the print jobs to the printer.