Missing "Print What" dialog box from print menu

[goldmanj]

When I go to print a powerpoint from 2004, I don't have the Print What
box that normally would allow you to set slides per page, notes, etc.
I just get the OS X generic print dialog box. I have about 200 macs I
support and it looks like about %75 have this problem, but I can't
find where I would turn this option back on or if a plug in is
missing. Has anyone else seen this or found an answer? My macs are
all running Office 2004 fully patched and Tiger full patched and are a
mix of intel and G5s.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

When I go to print a powerpoint from 2004, I don't have the Print What
box that normally would allow you to set slides per page, notes, etc.
I just get the OS X generic print dialog box. I have about 200 macs I
support and it looks like about %75 have this problem, but I can't
find where I would turn this option back on or if a plug in is
missing. Has anyone else seen this or found an answer? My macs are
all running Office 2004 fully patched and Tiger full patched and are a
mix of intel and G5s.

Under the Printer and Presets dropdowns, there's an unlabeled dropdown.
If you choose Copies and Pages in it, you'll get the dialog that lets you
choose what to print.


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[goldmanj]

Under the Printer and Presets dropdowns, there's an unlabeled dropdown.
If you choose Copies and Pages in it, you'll get the dialog that lets you
choose what to print.

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

Steve,

After reading my message, I don't think I was clear on the exact
problem. When going to print, the Copies and Pages option is there,
but the only options are, well, Copies and Pages. What you should
see in PowerPoint is an advanced Copies and Pages screen that gives
options such as printing in notes mode, or printing 3 slides per page
(not to be confused with the generic option of printing multiple
sheets per page as seen under layout). For some reason that advanced
option is gone for most users. I have also completely recreated user
accounts (and have tried both admin and user accounts) that have the
problem to make sure a fresh office profile was being created and the
problem still exists.

Thanks

Josh

 

[CyberTaz]

Have you checked to see if there are updates available for the printer
drivers?

 

[goldmanj]

Have you checked to see if there are updates available for the printer
drivers?

Bob,

I have checked and I am running the latest driver. I have seen this
on many different printers and have seen it work and not work on the
same printer from the same OS image. Its almost as if when Office
creates a new user profile, its leaving out parts that are needed for
the full print driver that may have been present in the past (which
may be why only certain users experience this).

Thanks,

Josh

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Josh,

Sounds like you are using Leopard. Is this the case?

What happens when you click the triangle next to the name of the printer?
Does that fix the problem if you click it a couple times?

Is PowerPoint up to date? (Help > Check for updates)

Have you repaired disk permissions?

Have you run DiskWarrior?

What brand and model printer are you using?

Thanks.

-Jim

Bob,

I have checked and I am running the latest driver. I have seen this
on many different printers and have seen it work and not work on the
same printer from the same OS image. Its almost as if when Office
creates a new user profile, its leaving out parts that are needed for
the full print driver that may have been present in the past (which
may be why only certain users experience this).

Thanks,

Josh

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[goldmanj]

Hi Josh,

Sounds like you are using Leopard. Is this the case?

What happens when you click the triangle next to the name of the printer?
Does that fix the problem if you click it a couple times?

Is PowerPoint up to date? (Help > Check for updates)

Have you repaired disk permissions?

Have you run DiskWarrior?

What brand and model printer are you using?

Thanks.

-Jim

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

Jim,

We are still running Tiger. My machines are either running 10.4.10 or
10.4.11. I have checked permissions, repaired disks, ran diskwarrior
and also ran Applejack from single user mode to clear all system
caches out. We have probably 30 printers that we are seeing this on,
a whole bunch of HP Laserjets and Color Laserjets, a few Xerox
Phasers, and a Xante. I don't think its a printer/specific print
driver issue because I've seen cases where I have two users printing
to the same printer using the exact same driver on the same machine
and it will only effect one of them. Also, using the standard print
options, they do print fine so the system itself has no problem
sending print jobs.

Thanks,

Josh

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

We are still running Tiger. My machines are either running 10.4.10 or
10.4.11. I have checked permissions, repaired disks, ran diskwarrior
and also ran Applejack from single user mode to clear all system
caches out. We have probably 30 printers that we are seeing this on,
a whole bunch of HP Laserjets and Color Laserjets, a few Xerox
Phasers, and a Xante. I don't think its a printer/specific print
driver issue because I've seen cases where I have two users printing
to the same printer using the exact same driver on the same machine
and it will only effect one of them. Also, using the standard print
options, they do print fine so the system itself has no problem
sending print jobs.

Is there any sort of consistency when you compare machines where you do vs
don't have this problem?

Things I'd look for:

Using network vs. local printers
PostScript vs. non-PostScript printers
Printers from one manufacturer vs another

PowerPoint updates applied vs. not
Ditto driver/system updates (sounds like you've done this already though)

The other stuff that'll probably occur to me after I click send.

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[goldmanj]

Actually, I just figured it out. I had to log in as root and at a
terminal run the command chmod -Rf 777 /Applications/Microsoft\ Office
\ 2004/.

The problem originated from Office 2004 being installed to the master
image using the drag and drop method so it kept all permission from
that user, and even though I had done a Get Info and set permissions
through finder so everyone had access to all files, it apparently
didn't because some files wouldn't change (I had seen this in Panther,
but not in Tiger until now). Going in through terminal and using the -
Rf (recursive and force) properly set all permissions and now all
users can access the advanced copies and pages dialog.

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. I know my environment is
different because we have multiple users on each machine and some
older programs weren't designed with a multi-user environment in mind.

Josh

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Actually, I just figured it out. I had to log in as root and at a
terminal run the command chmod -Rf 777 /Applications/Microsoft\ Office
\ 2004/.

And they say Office isn't intuitive? ;-)

Nice detective work.

The problem originated from Office 2004 being installed to the master
image using the drag and drop method so it kept all permission from
that user, and even though I had done a Get Info and set permissions
through finder so everyone had access to all files, it apparently
didn't because some files wouldn't change (I had seen this in Panther,
but not in Tiger until now). Going in through terminal and using the -
Rf (recursive and force) properly set all permissions and now all
users can access the advanced copies and pages dialog.

Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions. I know my environment is
different because we have multiple users on each machine and some
older programs weren't designed with a multi-user environment in mind.

Josh

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Luke Massman-Johnson]

Hi Jim,

Found you on MS news server. Hope you can help.

I¹ve created a complex presentation for a client in PPt on 8 1/2 x 11
slides. I have artwork and text 1/2² from the edges of the page. Late in the
game my client is asking for printable versions of his project and a quick
test print revealed that PPt seems to be unable to print anything within
3/4² of the right edge of the page. The top, left and bottom margins are
acceptable at 3/16².

I am a veteran computer designer, I know that PPt templates are 6x9 (which
obviously sit comfortably in the printable area of even the worst printers),
and that by choosing an 8 1/2 x 11 page size I wouldn¹t be able to print all
the way to the edge. But I didn¹t expect to lose 3/4² - I¹ve never seen
anything like it in other programs.

I print from all my other apps to within 1/8² of my page edge, so I know my
OS (Mac OSX 10.4.11) and my printers (Epson 1280 and 2200) are not the
limiting factor for my PPt print problem.

I am aware that there is a Œscale to fit¹ checkbox in the Print dialog which
technically works ­ everything is squished into the middle. Except that
small lines and text get fuzzy from interpolation. And more importantly, if
my client gives the presentation to his clients and they print 500 copies
but forget to check the Œshrink¹ checkbox, they¹re in for a massive headache
and lots of wasted paper and time.

I have read extensively in PPt help ­ nothing. I searched online at Office
for Mac sites ­ nothing. I talked with two MS phone support people who threw
up their hands. They finally helped put me in touch with you as a Œhail
Mary¹.

You may wonder why I can¹t just nudge my artwork to the left half an inch.
Well, I have two months of extremely interconnected design work invested in
the current layout ­ including overlap with an online website version of the
presentation built in Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. It will be
incredibly painful for me to now have to reposition thousands of elements
across several applications to keep them all matching.

Any ideas before I lose a week¹s worth of sleep on this insane detail?

I¹m so very grateful for any thoughts.

Luke

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

By and large you shouldn't have any problem with small lines/text going fuzzy
if you enlarge the slide to fill the page using "Fit to page", unless perhaps
these are mostly raster graphics. PowerPoint's own text/graphics are vector
and scale w/o issues, on the whole, though I can imagine a few circumstances
that might cause problems.

I assume, by the way, that you can print from other applications to the same
printer and fill the page w/o noticing any blurring problems; we can leave the
printer out of the "blame game"? ;-)

What about printing from your Notes Pages instead of slides? You can modify
the notes master to delete the text placeholder and bump the slide placeholder
up to fill the page. That'd give you independent scaling for printouts.

But since you also have the problem of letting the client print the document
instead of doing it under your control, you might also consider giving them a
PDF to print from in addition to the PPT.

Hi Jim,

Found you on MS news server. Hope you can help.

I¹ve created a complex presentation for a client in PPt on 8 1/2 x 11
slides. I have artwork and text 1/2² from the edges of the page. Late in the
game my client is asking for printable versions of his project and a quick
test print revealed that PPt seems to be unable to print anything within
3/4² of the right edge of the page. The top, left and bottom margins are
acceptable at 3/16².

I am a veteran computer designer, I know that PPt templates are 6x9 (which
obviously sit comfortably in the printable area of even the worst printers),
and that by choosing an 8 1/2 x 11 page size I wouldn¹t be able to print all
the way to the edge. But I didn¹t expect to lose 3/4² - I¹ve never seen
anything like it in other programs.

I print from all my other apps to within 1/8² of my page edge, so I know my
OS (Mac OSX 10.4.11) and my printers (Epson 1280 and 2200) are not the
limiting factor for my PPt print problem.

I am aware that there is a Œscale to fit¹ checkbox in the Print dialog which
technically works ­ everything is squished into the middle. Except that
small lines and text get fuzzy from interpolation. And more importantly, if
my client gives the presentation to his clients and they print 500 copies
but forget to check the Œshrink¹ checkbox, they¹re in for a massive headache
and lots of wasted paper and time.

I have read extensively in PPt help ­ nothing. I searched online at Office
for Mac sites ­ nothing. I talked with two MS phone support people who threw
up their hands. They finally helped put me in touch with you as a Œhail
Mary¹.

You may wonder why I can¹t just nudge my artwork to the left half an inch.
Well, I have two months of extremely interconnected design work invested in
the current layout ­ including overlap with an online website version of the
presentation built in Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. It will be
incredibly painful for me to now have to reposition thousands of elements
across several applications to keep them all matching.

Any ideas before I lose a week¹s worth of sleep on this insane detail?

I¹m so very grateful for any thoughts.

Luke

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================