Excel printer tray media type

[bowlow77]

Hi All,

I’ve been looking for several weeks now for a solution to this issue I hope someone can help.

In our office I have several printers, I would like to be able to select a tray and select duplex printing, I have the code for this and it all works fine. However I have a tray that’s media type is set to letterhead this is within the printer driver and set on the machine itself this sorts out the age old issue of when letterheads are printed in duplex the correct pre-printed side of the page is printed on first. Duplex and plain paper media type tends to print on the wrong side first.

As we have a lot of users on the network I can’t set-up macros for every application and user. So I’m looking for a way that excel can show a list of media types available on the printer and then set the correct media for the print job and then reset the media type to plain paper. Is this possible via a API call or Devmode?

[Keebellah]

You will have to find a methond to execute a macro

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The above dialog accesses the printer setup/selection dialog.

[bowlow77]

Keebellah

Thank you for this, but I was hoping that the printer set-up changes could be done via code rather than an end user manual input.

[Keebellah]

If you record a macro and then invoke all the steps using that dialog I indicated then you will see how to address the different paper sources and other printer settings.
Since these are strictly printer related I cannot write you a macro when mine is a simple inkjet with no extra trays.
If you would take the time to google and check out all the links you could find something

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...a-vba-in-excel
http://excelribbon.tips.net/T009178_...n_a_Macro.html
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/li...3/ch11s03.html

Asking is the shortest route, I agree, customizing the answer and putting it to work to your own requirements will cost a little more effort and sweat.

[Keebellah]

Just to show you I recorded a macro just looking at the settings and doing some things
The result

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You can do the same and then edit it to you further requirements.

[bowlow77]

HI Keebellah,

Thank you again for you input on this however I think I may not have been specific in my requirements.

I need to find out and then change the paper types i.e. plain paper, thick 1, thick 2 etc. I've spent a lot of time goggling this and no one seems to have the answer.

I have a lot of VBA code that handles other properties within the print job as you show above however I think I need an API or DEVMODE call to the printer itself and I was hoping for some help on how to achieve this.

[Keebellah]

What you are mentioning as what you put in the printer and the paper type is the user's decision, If you have a printer with 8 paper trays the it is only the user that knows which tray has which paper in it and all you have to do is choose the correct tray.
So again, API or whatever except returning a status (out of paper, out of ink or toner and so, those are the printer escape codes (you can find a list of these codes on the manufacturer's sites) but the rest is up to you.
My code above only shows the options my printer has, where is a HP with 4 trays, I could additionally tell it which tray to select, but the printer does not 'know' what is in it's tray.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Leith Ross]

Hello bowlow,

This will list the paper names and sizes for the default printer (active) for the user's computer.

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[Keebellah]

@Leith, nice, thanks for this, hope the OP can put it to use.
I'm certainly going to take a good look at it