W-2 IRS font

[Garry Griffith]

No one in this newsgroup has yet posted a problem with printing W-2's,
using the OCR-A font.
When I printed my W-2's with QB Pro 2000, I get the standard Courier
font in size 12, instead of the required OCR-A font that is supposed
to be the default font for W-2's.
Then I purchased QB Pro 2001 because I was told that would solve my
problem and I get the same problem. I've uninstalled all programs
that control fonts in case any of them would hide the OCR-A, but I'm
still having problems. This Courier font in size 12 is too large and
the fields are truncated.
Does anyone else have this problem?

Garry in Omaha

[HONYAKUKA]

Gary:

>Does anyone else have this problem?
>

Yes. (At least I think it's the same problem.) See the thread entitled "W-2:
Printing Problem." The best answer anyone could give me was that I should
leave the problem boxes blank and type in the figures (using a typewriter),
which is what I ended up doing.

Thanks for the info that QB2001 Pro doesn't resolve the problem. I might as
well wait until QB2002 at this rate.

Jay

[Mike Bartlett]

As a matter of fact, IRS dropped the OCR-A requirement - which is why the
forms are now printing in Courier, which is what the IRS expects.

Older versions of many programs are having problems with this, generally as
a result of space limitations and printer drivers. Try a generic text only
printer, or re-installing an up to date printer driver if one is available.

If that is your reason for not upgrading, then you are missing a lot -
Company name printing on the Bank Rec and returning to the same place in a
report after quick zooming are worth the upgrade cost alone. and no, 2002
won't fix this w-2 "problem" either.

"HONYAKUKA" <hony...@aol.com--> wrote in message
news:20010115225604...@ng-ct1.aol.com...

[HONYAKUKA]

>2002
>won't fix this w-2 "problem" either.

The specific problem I was having did not concern the font itself (which I
don't care about one way or the other), but that in Box 14, if you have a
figure of $10,000.00 or greater, it prints out as asterisks. Evidently, there
are too many digits. This is sloppy programming, pure and simple.

Jay

[Mike Bartlett]

again, this is because the IRS changed the font from the ocr-a to a courier
which takes up more room than the previous fonts - one fix for it has been
to go in to your windows setup and remove the thousands separator, thus
requiring less characters in the box. Your choice, of course.

"HONYAKUKA" <hony...@aol.com--> wrote in message

news:20010116090710...@ng-fb1.aol.com...

[HONYAKUKA]

>again, this is because the IRS changed the font from the ocr-a to a courier
>which takes up more room than the previous fonts

Numbers with the same number of characters fit fine in other boxes. There is
no reason that the programmers at Intuit couldn't have anticipated this problem
and programmed Box 14 to allow for more digits in a number if, say, the user
decided to put the label on one line and the number on the next; surely this is
not an insurmountable programming problem. (As it is now, even if you leave out
the label on the line and put in the number alone, you get asterisks.)

>one fix for it has been
>to go in to your windows setup and remove the thousands separator, thus
>requiring less characters in the box.

(1) Windows 98 apparently does not allow you to have no thousands separator.
When I tried to reset Regional Settings, it insisted that I enter a character
of one sort or another in the "Digit grouping symbol" box.
(2) I don't think this would make any difference anyway. Whereas the comma
appears on the screen, it does not print out in any numbers on the W-2.

Jay

[Jeff H]

> Older versions of many programs are having problems with this, generally
as
> a result of space limitations and printer drivers. Try a generic text
only
> printer, or re-installing an up to date printer driver if one is
available.

Something to note when having printing problems is the PDL format version.
PCL6, which is the default driver for many new HP printers is sometimes
buggy where fonts are concerned. PCL5e is much more stable and most HP
printers have a PCL5e driver available.

I have solved many printing problems (not just with QB) by switching to
PCL5e.

For instance, a client's 1099s printed out garbage characters in OCR-A from
QB99 on a WinNT4 system using the latest PCL6 driver on an HP4000.
Installing the PCL5e driver fixed it.

Jeff Hamblin
Qtools Software
www.qtools.com

[Mike Bartlett]

Funny you should mention that - I had to deal with this exact situation
today - HP4000, got the 5e PCL driver instead of the 6, fixed it!

"Jeff H" <jpha...@REMOVEhome.net> wrote in message
news:q8796.184376$I5.42...@news1.rdc1.sdca.home.com...