First thing is, are you putting the paper in straight?
  As you roll the paper into the machine, make sure you roll it through far enough so that you can align the top corners to the bottom corners.  You keep the paper bale lock off to do this, and put the lock back on when it's right.  That way the paper will be straight in the machine and stay that way.  Let us know. 

Hello!
I am Sergiu and I love typewriting. I am so glad I have been accepted as a member. Thank you for approving my registration. I live in Romania (near Black Sea) and I am also a primary school teacher. 
If I may, I will tell you 2 stories regarding typewriters:
1. When I was in 5th grade (gymnasium), I saw in the library a desk typewriter. I asked about that and the lady told me what is used for. I was also her favorite reader. So I came every day to the library and asked her to let me use it. I even started to make my class magazine, helped by her and another school mates. She also had a suitcase typewriter, a white suitcase but a very small one. I remember spotting the difference between the ribbons. The one from the suitcase had a red portion. Wow, that was amazing! But the suitcase typewriter had also a problem: when writing in CAPS, the letters were too high from the rest of the row. I never write anything at that typewriter. Instead I used the desk one. But my happy days lasted a few cause she left and the library was closed and I do not know what happened with all those books. My parents could not afford a typewriter and I was dreaming almost everyday that I will receive a typewriter. Sometimes I dremt that it was raining with typewriters and I catch them all. School was very soliciting so I kinda pushed the typewriting dream away, until high school when one of my aunts invited me to her office to use their typewriter. But it was so disappointing: the ribbon was very very used and she was always chatty. So I gave up. In the same time (1999) computers started to captivate me, but only because they had a keyboard. I did not have a computer and at school I was always typing on the 486 and 386 computers but I never found my files. One day I draw the keyboard on a piece of paper and after doing my homework, I was typing on that piece of paper for hours. Every single day... I was writing everything that popped in my head. Sometimes I even cried for not having a real typewriter. I asked a friend for a computer keyboard. He had a broken one. Even if the keys were real, it just was not what I wanted. I wanted a typewriter, so I returned it. I think soon after that I asked my principal to lend me a typewriter I saw resting for weeks. Now this part is kinda blurry but what is very clear is that I was writing at home on a typewriter! Finally! I was writing all of the things I had to learn at school. It is true, one day my parents gave me a used red typewriter but it was small and the keys were sticky and I did not used it because it annoyed me. I had to return the school typewriter at some point put can you believe that the principal and the secretary were using me (seldom) to type things at their typewriter because I was typing faster than them? In 3 years I was the posesor of a computer and even if I received soon after not one but two typewriters, I was not curious about them for almost 15 years.

2. These past weeks, I can not remember what triggered it, I remember that I have two typewriters. I forgot I sold one of them few years ago and when I remembered I was really sad. It was an Adler Junior, a green one and I remember that she was stupendous in typing. But I still had the Naumann Erika from 1936! Fully functional and with my mother language diacritics! I took the typewriter at school to show my pupils. They were fascinated! For few days, every break was full of typing. None of them wanted to go outside and play. Luckily I had two (in the meantime I bought a cursive-font one) so there was no fight. One boy and two girls told their parents they want one too and their parents called me and asked me to help them buy one for the kids. Those kids write poetry and short stories and I was so glad they will gonna type! So I helped one of them and the other two are still waiting for their typewriters to arrive by mail.
In short lines, this is my story.
Did I mention I start to hate the computer and I returned to my first love, the typewriter? Well, I did.
- - Sergiu.

Welcome to the forum Trevor !  I am sure that others will comment, but just to say that yes the Remington 17 should be a good machine.  It is the first of the 'modern' Remington office manuals, introduced in 1939 to replace the hopelessly outdated Remington 16.  All subsequent models right up to the end of production in the late 1970's were based on the mechanics of the 17.  To survive in production that long, they must have got something right !

Apparently the Remington 17 was the most used typewriter by the allied governments during the second world war. This adds to it's appeal for me!

Ok, interesting! Are spares available for it and what might it be worth?