Word 2007 slow to print

[Keith]

I have a user who is having an issue printing from Word 2007. After clicking
on print it takes 30 seconds before the print window appears. It only happens
in word, Excel, Outlook and Power Point all work fine.

I have seen this problem reported on HP's web site but nobody had any answers.

Has anybody found a solution for this problem?

 

[Terry Farrell]

If the printer is connected locally and the latest driver is installed, then
it is an HP driver issue. Their drivers have been really buggy. Just search
this newsgroup for HP and see how many hits you get!

 

[Keith]

It's not a driver issue. The window that takes all the time to come up is the
standatd print window, where you select which printer you want to print to.
Also all the printers are networked and not on the back of PC's

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If the driver for the default printer is not installed locally, that could
be the problem.

 

[Keith]

Unfortunately switching to another printer as default doesn’t help.

 

[Terry Farrell]

What happens if you start Word in Safe Mode? From Start, Run, type in

winword /a

and press enter. Now try to print. If it is still slow, it is probably
because you printers are incorrectly networked. As Suzanne has said, printer
driver MUST be locally installed for Word to work correctly.

Terry

 

[Keith]

It is still slow, but all drivers are installed locally as they are all
printers on the network so they require the drivers installed locally to
work. Also if it was a printer driver issue why don't I get the same issue
with Excel or any other program?

 

[Terry Farrell]

Because Excel and other programs don't work the same as Word (vice versa).
Word interrogates the printer driver parameters to determine how a document
is to be laid out to match the printed page version. Every printer is
slightly different: even different versions of a printer driver for the same
printer can have minor differences. Without a locally installed compatible
printer driver, Word won't work at all.

However, if Word is loading slowly even in Safe Mode, something else is
amiss. In Safe Mode, Word is opening in its default install mode bypassing
all customisations, templates, macros, normal.dot, add-ins, etc.

What happens if you log in as a different user on that workstation and try
printing?

Terry

 

[Keith]

Terry,

Thanks for the background info, I didn't know word worked like that when
printing.

I have logged in as Administrator but the delay is still there. I have also
deleted several printers the user doesn’t need, but that didn't help either.
I did notice however that the printers window took quite a while to come up
and show me the printers installed, so I am wondering if there is an issue
with windows now.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Keith

you could well be onto something if the Windows printer dialog is slow to
open. This would suggest that Word is now OK and there's something else not
quite correct.

I recommend that you start from scratch by installing a local printer on a
workstation - removing all the networked printers from it - and see if it is
still slow opening that Printer dialog.

Terry

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm wondering if there is one of the installed printers that's slow to
respond (especially if it's the one that's set as the default, this could be
an issue).