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Associate a particular
printer with a document. |
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Word does not store information about the specific printer intended to
print the document, and as the current printer to a large extent
determines the formatting of the document, it would be useful to be able
to store this information and set the active printer to the printer
stored in the document.
The companion web page
Print to a specific printer
demonstrates how to select individual printers
without affecting the default. This page provides simple tools to store
the preferred printer in the document's properties and to print to the
named printed without affecting the default printer.
The functions incorporate vba routines borrowed from the
MVPS.ORG web site - specifically
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/AvailablePrinters.htm and
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/macrosvba/MixedDocProps.htm to list
the installed printers and to write to custom document properties - and
are offered in the form of an
add-in which you can download. |
| Using the
add-in |
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The add-in is packaged in a standard ZIP format
containing a document template, which should be extracted to the Word
Startup folder. This folder is defined in Word at Tools > Options >
File Locations > Startup or in Word 2007 - Word Options >
Advanced > File Locations > Startup.
On starting Word the add-in presents a
toolbar. In Word 2007 it adds two entries to the Add-Ins tab (if no other
add-ins were installed, the Add-Ins tab would not previously have been
displayed). |
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The first
option 'Associate Printer with Document' reads the
list of available printers from Windows and presents them in a numbered
list (see illustration below). The currently active printer is offered
as the default number in the text input area.
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Because
of the varying length of printer names, this function
is configured to read only the first 8 characters,
to determine the active printer name. If two or more printers have very
similar names, it will be the last matching printer number which is
shown, which may not be the currently active printer. |
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If the indicated printer number is not the printer to be associated with
the document, change the number to the corresponding number. If you
enter a number outside the range of available printers you will see an
error message. |
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The
function then writes the printer name to a custom document property
'Printer' and pops up a message of confirmation. |
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Custom
document properties may be accessed in Word versions before 2007 from
the File menu. |
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... and in Word 2007 from Word Options > Prepare >
Document Properties > Advanced Properties |
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In both versions, the following dialog shows the entry
below |
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Printing the document |
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While it
would be possible to intercept the print command, I prefer to offer a
separate command to print to the printer indicated in the
custom property field. The second command on the toolbar looks for the
custom property entry and, if it contains a printer name, will check
whether that printer is available. |
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If there is no custom printer property of the named
printer is not available, it offers the opportunity
to print to the active printer or to cancel. The macro finally reports your
choice of action. |
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