XL2000: Page Fault Printing to Generic/Text Only Printer

In Microsoft Excel 2000, if you print a worksheet using the Generic/Text Only printer driver, you may experience either of the following problems:

• Microsoft Excel 2000 stops responding (hangs). To quit the program, you must press CTRL+ALT+DEL, and then shut down the instance of Microsoft Excel 2000.
  
  -or-
• You will receive the following error message:
  This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.
  If you click Details, you receive an error message similar to the following:
  EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module MSO9.DLL at 017f:308cfaf8.
  When you click Close, Microsoft Excel 2000 closes.

These problems occur if the following conditions are true:

• In the Print dialog box in Microsoft Excel 2000, you click Properties.
  
  -and-
• In the Generic/Text Only Properties dialog box, you click the Device Options tab, and then click any of the three character mapping options (TTY Custom, Code Page 437, or Code Page 850).
  
  -and-
• You then click OK or Apply, and then OK.

If it is necessary to use the Generic/Text Only printer driver, avoid selecting a character mapping option from within Microsoft Excel 2000. Instead, use the Printers dialog box in Windows 95 or 98 to select a Character Mapping option. To do this, following these steps:

1. On the Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
2. In the Printers dialog box, right-click the Generic/Text Only printer driver. On the shortcut menu, click Properties.
3. Click the Device Options tab.
4. Click the character mapping option that you want to use.
5. Click OK.

You can print to the Generic/Text Only printer driver without receiving any error messages.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

The Generic/Text Only printer driver is designed for use with older dot matrix and "daisy-wheel" printers that do not have a dedicated printer driver in Windows 95 and 98. You can also use the Generic/Text Only printer to print to text files.