Macro to print to the default printer

**Alves76** · 04-19-2013, 09:11 AM

Perhaps someone can help with with what is probably a very simple problem. I've been trawling through the internet to find a solution and all I ever seem to find is a solution for the inverse of my problem.

So here it is...

I have a macro on a Word document that will print the document via the macro (bypassing the print dialogue box). What I WANT to do it to print the document to the user's DEFAULT printer (not their current printer). In the majority of cases the default printer will be the current printer, but there are times when a user has another word document open and has the printer set to another printer (let's call it printer 2). The default printer is printer 1 but because they already have a Word doc open and have the printer 2 selected, when the new document (with the macro for printing) is used, the document prints to printer 2 and not printer 1 (even though printer 1 is the default printer - it's just that at this point in time it's not the current printer).

Can anyone tell me what to put in the VBA script to make sure that when the document prints it prints to printer 1 (the default printer) every time, even if another Word doc is already open that has a different printer selected?

Your help, as always, is greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Andre

**Kyle123** · 04-19-2013, 10:28 AM

This will get you the default printer:

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**Alves76** · 04-19-2013, 10:46 AM

Thanks Kyle,

One thing, that shows off how little I know...

How do I link to that function in my own subroutine?

**safi0102** · 04-19-2013, 02:51 PM

Try this ??

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**Kyle123** · 04-19-2013, 02:56 PM

It's used in your existing macro in place of the printer that you're currently printing out on, why not post your code so it makes it easier to help?

**Alves76** · 04-22-2013, 04:00 AM

Thanks Safi - If I've understood your code correctly the thing is that we have many different users globally so the printer name will be different for different users, otherwise it would be easier to set it to the one printer and then switch back, which is what I've seen online in other forums.

I would like exactly what you wrote except the line that changes the printer would need to be the default printer as stated in the control panel. If there was a simple line of code for that I'd be done (I think).

Kyle,

Apologies I didn't think the code would have been relevant here. There's a bunch of code that does "stuff" (i.e. hides or unhides various sections of the document). Once that's done it simply comes to the print out part which I have as....

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I don't want the print dialogue box to come up because I don't want people selecting more than 1 copy. If you want the other code I can paste it, but I don't want to put reams of code in unnecessarily.

So, what you're saying is that I replace this line with what you added earlier in the thread?

Thanks again Kyle and Safi.

**JosephP** · 04-22-2013, 04:23 AM

using Kyle's code I reckon it oughta be

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**Alves76** · 04-22-2013, 05:21 AM

Thank you Joseph.

That worked.

I always thought it would be a simple answer.

Thanks again everyone

**JosephP** · 04-22-2013, 05:25 AM

no need to thank me-Kyle did all the hard work :-)

**Alves76** · 04-22-2013, 05:47 AM

True.

The only thing is that when it gets to the last line the code seems to set the active printer as the default printer (although I don't see why). It's not much of a problem for me because I don't mind if the printer isn't set back to the active printer. The user can change that themselves - they use the default printer about 95% of the time anyway so it's not going to be an issue.

When I was attempting this myself I was trying something similar except I was trying to write ActiveDocument.DefaultPrinter and it wasn't doing anything. I never thought to take away the ActiveDocument part.

Thanks again.