23rd September 2002

Question: I am running Windows Millennium Edition with Internet Explorer 5.5 installed, and for some reason I can't print from any web pages. I have reinstalled my printer and it works fine on other applications. I even took the printer to another computer running Windows ME and it works fine. Is there a setting on my computer that I seem to be missing?

Answer: First, I just want to applaud you for your use of deductive reasoning when tracking down your computer problem. Computer technicians love when you can give them all the steps you have tried to resolve the problem as it can save a lot of time. As you have probably figured out by now the problem isn't with your printer or Windows ME because you can print from other applications, so that leaves Internet Explorer 5.5 as the culprit. I think this is just a simple issue of what encoding option your Internet Explorer is using. What you need to do is open Internet Explorer, go to the View menu and then Encoding. The encoding option should be set to Unicode so if it isn't then just click on Unicode to select it. Once you have done that I would close all instances of Internet Explorer and then try to open a web page you had trouble printing. You should notice that the trouble is gone now.