Word Processors print blank pages

I'm trying to help my elderly mother print a letter she typed in Word 2007. Her PC is running Windows XP. She's not very computer literate and gets frustrated easily.
For some reason, the letter prints with all pages blank. I tried different fonts and making sure the font color was black, I tried checking more print checkboxes under Word options, and I also tried running Word's built in troubleshooter. Nothing worked.
I tried pasting the text into Microsoft Works' word processor, but it printed blank, too.
I also tried unplugging and plugging the printer back in, rebooting the PC, and turning both PC and printer on and off. Still nothing.
I Googled the problem, and found a couple of web sites that suggested what I tried next (see below); without thinking, I printed the web pages to reference while rebooting, and they PRINTED FINE! But Word still printed blanks.
Then I tried deleting the print driver (it's an HP Deskjet 810C), rebooting the computer, and letting Windows re-install the print driver. Didn't help.
So I tried downloading Open Office and pasting all the text in a new document. It printed blanks, too.
Since web pages printed, I thought maybe an online word processor would print. So I pasted the text into Google Docs. It didn't print either!
Finally, I Googled to find a free word processor for kids, thinking my Mom might handle it better than Word (she doesn't really need anything fancy anyway). So I found WriteType and downloaded it. Since all the other word processors wouldn't work, I didn't really expect WriteType to be able to print the text, BUT IT DID!
So, I finally did get it printed, but I'd like to solve this problem in the future. I created documents to track her diabetes in Word on this PC, so it would be great to be able to print them.
Anyone know what the problem might be?

 

Reading through your description got me more and more puzzled; it does not make any sense to me! If it was only Word, we may think of a solution, but any word processing software...?

What I would try if I encountered that problem, use Save As Adobe PDF, then print it from a PDF viewer like Adobe Reader.

 

Actually, the Save As command options include PDF or XPS, not Adobe PDF, unless the Word option is, indeed, modified to read
"Adobe PDF" on computers with Adobe Reader installed. Adobe Reader or another PDF reader could then be used to view the PDF file.

 

Since you were able to print a web page and also from WriteType, it seems that the computer is
communicating with the printer properly.

From your description, each time you are trying to print the same document, even when you did
the copy/paste.

I'm thinking that there could be some control codes embedded in the document that are causing the strange behavior.
Try creating a new document and print that.
Try using a plain text mode.

Another possible word processor is Jarte
Jarte: Features

 

Very curious.

One thing - how many pages does the Word document have, on-screen? (At the bottom, there is a Page Count, a Page #.) I'm wondering if the typist has accidentally tapped the CTRL-ENTER combo several times - creating hard-page-breaks and thus increasing a 1-page document to 10 or 15 or more 'electronic' pages, although all typing occurs on a single 'page'.

 

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful input. I'll try more of your suggestions as soon as I can.
I think my Mom's letter was 2 pages, but I found I had the same printing problems with the diabetes tracking forms I created which are both only 1 page each.
The page break keyboard shortcut is a great thought, since it's entirely possible that my Mom might have accidentally hit those keys; the only problem is, I would think if that happened, it should eventually print the pages that have text on them, even with blank pages added. Also, I think the number of blank pages that print are equal to the number of pages in the documents.

 

The problem has escalated! I haven't had a chance to try some of the things you suggested yet, but since web pages printed fine, I tried to print directions to a picnic from Google Maps yesterday, and it printed 3 blank pages!
So now it's not just word processors any more!
Does this suggest that it might be some kind of virus?