If you're not sure whether to increase or decrease the numbers, use the DOWN ARROW key to move the text down or left. One square on the grid corresponds to 10 units or one character. Use the alignment grid on the test printout to measure how far to move the text.Printing samples on blank paper saves checks. Hold both up to the light to see if the text printed correctly. Print a sample and then place it on top of a real check. If you have a page-oriented printer, print sample checks on plain paper.Tips for using the fine alignment feature Do this even if your printer has an autoload or park feature.
Once your checks have printed successfully, note the check position so that you can reload your checks to this position in the future. If your printer has this feature enabled, turn it off. If the pointer line position is the same on each check sample, you may have skip-over-perforation enabled. Check to see if your printer has a skip-over-perforation feature.If you can't see the pointer line, open the dust cover and look inside to read the pointer line position. If you can't see the pointer line on the sample check, do not roll the check forward.Tips for using the coarse alignment feature Fine alignment is used for page-oriented printers and small adjustments of less than one line feed. Generally, coarse alignment is used first on continuous-feed printers and for large adjustments of one line feed or more. If you've set up your printer correctly, Quicken knows which alignment feature to try first. Ensure that you are printing Quicken-compatible checks.They also confirmed that the Quicken bug has been a long-standing problem. Update: Several readers suggested getting paper that includes a Post-It Note type adhesive strip, designed for just this task. I have not yet tried this (I am a bit hesitant to feed taped paper through the printer). The best he could suggest for now was to tape an additional piece of paper to the lone check, so that it could be fed in horizontally without jamming. Thus, there are no plans as yet to fix this in the next version of Quicken, although he planned to file a report about the matter.
Incredibly, the support person claimed I was the first person to report this. They confirmed that the text misalignment was indeed a bug in the program. In fact, the more I played with Quicken's paper orientation feature, the more problems I found with it. However, the printed text did not properly align with the check, making the technique useless. My next thought was to change the orientation of the check feed, from the horizontal to the vertical position (using Quicken 98's Preferences settings). Even when the solo check was being fed through the printer the first time, it still jammed. I was skeptical, but tested it out anyway. The best they could suggest was that the problem was due to the paper being fed through the printer multiple times. I called HP technical support for advice. It went through with no problem - which suggested that the problem was somehow with the Quicken paper (although I never had this problem with my old LaserWriter NTR). I did a further test by cutting a standard sheet of paper to the same dimensions as the single check sheet.
My first thought was that the paper size was too small, although the HP manual suggested it should be able to accommodate this size. I feed the paper through the sheet feeder with the back door open (the preferred method for "difficult" paper), but to no avail. It gets stuck just prior to entering the "fuser" (where the print is made "permanent" so that it does not rub off). However, if the sheet has only a lone check remaining, the check invariably gets jammed in the printer. When printing a sheet with 2 or 3 checks on it, everything goes fine. I use wallet sized checks (3 to a sheet) obtained directly from Intuit.
Ever since I bought a HP LaserJet 4000N printer (which has been a great printer overall), I have had one annoying glitch: