Paper Source selection changed “by itself” on 800 documents.

[TKaminski]

Paper Source selection changed “by itself” on 800 documents.

Hello,

I am working on a support call from one of my users and have run out of ideas.

The user has an extensive collection of more than 800 word documents with the print settings configured so that the first page will be printed on letterhead (Tray2) and all the other pages being printed on non-letterhead (Tray3).

User reported that the all the word docs on their local hard drive that had this configuration now print to (Tray1 - Manual Feed) for the first page and then letterhead (Tray2) for all the other pages.

By personally printing and reviewing the print settings, I have confirmed this is truly the current output. I also have a strong belief that this collection of documents previously did in fact print to letterhead and plain paper as reported since these documents are regularly used in a production environment.

This is a skilled user who takes advantage of some of the more useful setting available in Word, but not the kind of user who tears the guts of Word to pieces just to see what will happen.

Among the numerous other attempts, here are a few of the things I have tried that have not been able to reverse this change.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the network printed.

Returned the MS Word’s Normal.DOC to its default settings.

This PC has both Office 1997 and Office 2000 installed for more than one year without problems. The operating system is Win 2000. No recent changed have been made to this PC, such as service packs, etc.

Restore from Backup is not currently available:
The user did not make backups of this large collection of word documents. (Note: tech support properly verbally flogged User for this oversight, and even though this felt good, verbal flogging did not restore the word documents to proper performance. No need to suggest additional punishments, 800 damaged word doc is more than enough punishment.)

I am at a loss to find what action could have changed the print settings in each of these word documents. The properties for the default network printer are set for Automatic Select.

I tied some searching of MS Knowledge Base with little help. Searching for “printer output”, etc produces huge numbers of possible matches.

Any guesses are welcome.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Dreamboat]

It sure sounds to me like there was a printer installation set as default that has since been moved.

Make a copy of the printer. Set the trays. Make it the default printer.

Anne Troy

http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum

 

[TKaminski]

Hello Dreamboat and thanks for the reply.

When you write that I could try making a copy of the printer, what steps are you suggesting.

It sounds like it might work, but I am not clear if this is not the same as uninstalling the same network printer and then reinstalling, and then setting it to be the default.

MORE INFO.
I have found out that the printer that this user works with, (or the related print server), was having problems about a week ago and users changed their own printer defaults to a different printer while this was being worked out. Later the users returned their default printer setting to this printer after the problem was reported to be fixed. Later when this user returned from their vacation this problem was reported.

I had been look in MS Word and Win2000 for an answer, but this could be a printer or print server, or maybe a print drive issue. These are not areas that I know a lot about.

Few details are available due to many people's overlapping vacation schedules. The repair to the printer/print server may be causing problems on other stray PCs as well. Vage, odd behavoir on print jobs not run often.

Hardware: Network Pinter is an HP 8000. A coworker found a KB article on a possible firmware issue with this HP printer. But, this printer has been in service for several years with no issues. Sound like something changed, but I don't know where to look to "fix" the "fix".

What do you suggest? Dreamboat, any thought on this? I will try to follow your steps about making a copy of the printer, but I need just a few more detials.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Dreamboat]

Just like you copy any file in Windows explorer by *click and drag* while holding the ctrl key, you can make a copy of the printer.

Or right-click the current printer, and copy, then right-click again in the white area and paste. It says something like HPLJ2 (copy 2).

Now, change the original printer's properties to print to the appropriate trays, and make it the default.

Then, change copy 2 to be something like HPLJ2 (no trays) or something like that, to indicate to the user what happens when printing to THAT printer.

See, you can install the same printer 10 times if you want, and set diff properties on each installation. Like, you might want to print to the color printer for test printing, but in B&W so you don't waste the color ink. So you copy the color printer, and set properties to only B&W, and then change its name to Color Printer (B&W) or something like that.

Anne Troy

http://www.vbaexpress.com/forum