Thank you both; I have printed out your replies for future use. I finally had to call Dell, & learned there is a compatability problem - first they said "between Windows ME and PIP (shouldn't they have dealt with that BEFORE they loaded it on my computer?), then they took me to Norton AntiVirus, and unchecked something about character-recognition, i think. Now it's printing fine (until the next time, anyway!). BTW, i love being able to take my computer rants and frustrations to people who listen and respond - it actually makes it all worthwhile!!