Word retains printer settings

[Ally]

Hi, I have multiple users who have a problem with Microsoft Word printing.
If they make any settings like change the tray from the default setting, the
next time they go into word and print, these settings are retained and not
back to default.

This means half the time they think they are printing to the default plain
paper, but actually printed to the letterheaded paper because they forgot
they printed letterheaded earlier in the day.

This problem only occurs to several users, 80+ people work with same
printers and software and are ok.

All users use Win XP SP2 and Office 2003 SP3. Thanks.

 

[Chuck]

And, other users complain that the print settings go back to default when
they don't want them to. <Sigh!>
You neglected to say what printers are being used, and how the users connect
to them.

The printer drivers can be the major culprit in this issue. Drivers written
to different revisions of the interface standards can easily be the cause of
the difference.

Maybe the users having this problem need a little help?
Note pasted to display --- CHECK Printer Settings BEFORE Printing

 

[Ally]

Thanks for the completely useless reply.

Printer is a network connected HP 4250N.

Lots of people use this printer without problem, the issue is machine
specific.

Microsoft Office by default returns the print settings to configured default
settings as standard.

Mu users aren't that stupid, and neither am I. Either answer the post
proactively or don't bother at all.

 

[Bob I]

Sounds like the problem is that Word is only being minimized, and not
actually closed and then reopened. The other possible problem is that
they are forcing the trays in the printing preferences.

 

[Ally]

This problem has been occurring on some machines for a very long time now,
I've sat at their machines personally and checked it myself countless times
and it's exactly how they say.

When they open word and change the printer tray from the default printer
tray, close word and go back into it again, the settings they changed are
still there.

Office should change printer settings back to their defaulted settings as
standard. This happens on 95% of our machines, just several for some reason
where it doesn't.

 

[Bob I]

How are they changing the tray? Are they changing it in Page Setup? That
will be stored in the Normal.dot file. If this is in the "Printer,
Properties", I would look to see that Word is actually closing, and not
still running in Task Manager (look in Processes tab for WinWord.exe) Is
the user using Word as the Outlook editor perhaps, and that is causing
Word to not actually close?

 

[thefink]

I came across this same problem with Word XP.
I installed new computers and suddenly this issue arose from nowhere!
When you change the print settings from the Word print dialog the
changed settings remain even after closing Word. This only occurs in
Word and not in other Office applications.
The problem comes from Outlook, something most people have open all
day. When you use Word as your e-mail editor than Winword.exe is never
closed even when you think it is! When I turned this off the problem
went away immediately.
I hope this helps some of the people with similar problems.