Why Does Text Get Squished Up In Word 2010 With A Translucent Watermark?

Question

You may experience an anomaly in Word 2010 that looks like this:

The expected result is supposed to be normally-displayed text. In the picture below, the text that is circled contains approximately 35 characters when rendered correctly. It is squished together to the point of being illegible in the incorrectly-rendered scenario.

Read the Answer to this question to see why this occurred in my case, and what I did to diagnose and resolve it.

Answer 1

The Problem and Diagnosis

Some (unknown) combination of the following factors contributed to seeing this rendering error:

• Nvidia NVS300 graphics
• Nvidia driver version 8.17.12.5993 (signed on 10/16/2010)
• Windows 7 32-bit
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 version 14.0.6123.5001
• The "Disable hardware graphics acceleration" checkbox under Word Options is Unchecked (see screenshot below)
• A transparent/translucent watermark displaying the text "Draft"
• A style or directly-formatted text using the font Times New Roman Bold (note that the name of the font itself contains the word "Bold"; this is not the same thing as using the font named "Times New Roman" and formatting it with the Bold property)

The problem is related to the graphics rendering subsystem, because disabling hardware accelerated graphics in Word resolves the problem. We also know that the problem is related to the interaction of the rendering changes that occur when transparent objects (such as a "Draft" watermark) are placed on the page, and the rendering that occurs for the Times New Roman Bold font.

Mitigations and Solutions

• Disable hardware graphics acceleration. However, this only resolves the problem on the computer where you've disabled hardware graphics. Other PCs with a similar configuration will experience the problem unless they, too, disable hardware graphics.

To do that, check the checkbox circled in red, here:

• Don't use the Times New Roman Bold font. Instead, use regular Times New Roman font, and set the Bold property.