Saab Dastard, many thanks for your useful input. However, these have not rectified the problem.
Firstly, I can confirm that I am printing to a printer and not a file.
I have removed and re-installed IE7 as you have suggested. The previous fault symptoms as described are still the same even after having done that.
Regarding Automatic Updates, I totally agree with your sentiments. Like you I have disabled the Automatic Updates. I do however, manually update about every 6 weeks. The point that I was attempting to make when describing the fault symptoms was that within this time frame no automatic updates would have been downloaded that could have possibly corrupted the system, in case anyone brought that up as a suggestion. My fault as I should have been more explicit in the first instance – apologies.
Apart from going for a totally different browser, I am not sure what to do now.
Are there any other suggestions from anyone?
VB