If it is a bug, I had not come across it. Nor do I think that 'notifying
Microsoft' via this forum will achieve anything.
Since checking this out I have noticed that if you set the active printer by
macro - eg
ActivePrinter = "HP LaserJet 4050 Series PCL"
This changes the default printer. I cannot recall this happening previously.
Changing the active printer via the file print dialog doesn't change the
default printer. Do you or your fellow users use macros to change the active
printer? If so, then whether or not this is a bug you could set the
ActivePrinter command to point to the correct default printer in an autoopen
and autonew macro in the document template or normal.dot in your profile.
You wouldn't then get tripped up by someone else's settings.
The macros on my web site that change the activeprinter for a print task
record the current printer before printing to the required printer, then
change it back to what it had been before. If your fellow users are using
macros that change the active printer then they could be modified to achieve
this.
--
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
My web site
www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site
http://word.mvps.org
Nyco_ork wrote:
Graham,
I'm not "dismissing" the macro solution lightly, or because I'm too
lazy to copy the macros you've so kindly provided. The fact is,
there's something wrong here. I don't have a situation where Word
keeps the last used printer setting during a session, which would be
fine with me. (And I don't use Outlook, BTW.) The problem is that
when I close Word, then go to another application, I discover
(sometimes too late) that Word has changed the system default
printer. That's why the macros don't solve my problem. The change of
setting affects more than Word or Office programs; it affects all my
programs.
The other thing is that different printers have different font
metrics, and if the default printer has been changed without my
knowledge, and I'm doing some final formatting, I might be dealing
with misleading font metrics onscreen.
For instance, I use 3 centered em-dashes as a marker for "section"
changes in my final copies -- not Word section boundaries, but places
in the text where I want the thought to break. My default printer is
a black-and-white laser printer. With that driver active, the 3
centered em-dashes print (and show onscreen) as a single short line,
which is what I want. The inkjet which I use as a temporary printer
-- for printing markups in color -- prints them as 3 separate
em-dashes. There are other differences as well. Text lines break in
different places, and so on.
The same difficulties arise in other programs. What I am now forced
to do, which I never had to do in all the years I used Word 2000, is
double-check which printer is active whenever I try to print in any
program I'm using.
Since you say Word shouldn't be changing the default system printer,
it must be a bug. Am I the only one experiencing the problem? I
assume Microsoft will continue servicing and updating Word 2003 for a
while longer, even though they've come out with 2007. Is there any
way of converting this thread to a "notify Microsoft" thread, so they
are aware of it?
Maybe the bug only happens with certain printers. My inkjet is an
Epson 2000P, and my laser is a Brother MFC-7820N.
"Graham Mayor" wrote:
Word has always retained the last used printer setting - the *Active*
Printer - until Word is closed (which will mean closing Outlook also
if you have Word as your e-mail editor) It should not change the
Windows *default* printer. The macro solution that you dismiss will
return the *active* printer to what it was before the print job.
--
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
Nyco_ork wrote:
I'm having the problem I've seen others report here; I use three
different printers (2 hardware, 1 software PDF creator), and
whenever I use one of the non-default printers for two or three
print jobs from inside Word, it resets the system default printer
to the one I'm using temporarily. Word 2000 never did this. Neither
does Wordperfect. Firefox keeps the last printer used as its own,
internal default printer, but it doesn't change the system default
printer. Why does Microsoft have to assail us with these
infuriating bugs?
Graham, I've seen your macro toolbar workaround, and it's not what I
need
for this situation. I need to know if there's some way to keep Word
from resetting the default printer, which it has no business doing.
I'm on SP2 of Office 2003. Have any of the hotfixes issued since SP2
addressed this problem?
RB