Jan's Working with Words

Step-by-Step: Printer Settings

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What you will learn:

to use the Print dialog (Word 2007, 2010) or Print pane (Word 2013, 2016) to use the Properties dialog for the selected printer to use the Word Options dialog to control printing to print a document

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Start with:, , flyer-World Travel Inc-Lastname-Firstname.docx completed

Save

1. Save the document.
   It is a very good idea to save your work before printing. Sometimes computers lockup during the printing process. This would lose your document entirely if it has not been saved. Of course, you should be saving it all along as you create it, too!
   

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Dialog: Printer

You have a lot of choices of what and how to print. One of the installed printers is set as the default printer. But Word will remember what you used last. So you have to LOOK each time your print.

1. Start to print:
   Word 2007: Click  Office button  > Print
   The Print dialog box appears. Notice where you can select the printer, the number of copies and which pages to print.
   
   Word 2010, 2013:  Click the File tab > Print
   The Print Preview and Print pane appears. Notice where you can select the printer, the number of copies and which pages to print.

   

   The printer you last used is selected.

   You may have more than one printer to choose from, especially if you are on a network. Some of these "printers" create a file instead of actually printing on paper.

   What you will change the most often here is the Page Range and the number of copies.   

2. Click the arrow to the right of the printer's name to see what printers are available. Before you choose a network printer, be sure you know where that printer is physically. Can you can go get the printed pages? Sometimes your normal printer will not be the one showing in this box at first! Always LOOK.
   
3. Click on the printer you want to use this time.
   

4. Select All under Page Range and 1 copy.

   Do not close the dialog or pane yet. 

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Printer Properties

The Printer Properties dialog looks quite different for different printers, even for those from the same company. Commonly you will at least be able to set page orientation, the type and size of paper, the color and quality of the printing.

The values shown in the properties ought to agree with what you set in Page Setup, but sometimes printers and word processors have trouble communicating. Check to see how well yours get along. Probably you will find that they agree, so you'd only have to look in one place. But if you forgot to look earlier, here's another spot to look.

1. To see the settings for the particular printer:
   Word 2007: Click on Properties button at the upper right of the dialog.
   Word 2010, 2013, 2016: Click the Printer Properties link under the Printer text box.
2. Make changes, if needed. 
   Colored ink and toner is much more expensive than black and color printing is slower also. Be sure you have permission before choosing to print in color.
   
3. Click on OK to close the Printer Properties dialog.
   That dialog closes and you are back to the Printer dialog or the Print Preview and Print pane.

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Options > Print

1. Open Word Options:
   Word 2007: Click on the Options button at the bottom left of the Print dialog
   Word 2010, 2013, 2016: Click on the Options link on the left of Backstage view.
   The Word Options dialog opens.
2. Click on Display in the list of pages.
   
3. Verify the settings in the section Print options.
   The settings are the same for all three versions.
    
   Print background colors and images: Only check this box if you really mean it! It takes a lot of ink to print a color or background image for the entire page!
    
   Update fields or linked data before printing: Check this only if a field in your document might have changed since you last updated the field while working on the document, the time stamp for example.
   

4. Click on the Advanced page in the Word Options dialog and scroll to the Print section.

5. Verify that the settings match the illustration.
   Word 2013 and 2016 have one more item than 2007 and 2010.

   Print in background: Allows you to work on other things while the computer sends information to the printer. With this box unchecked, you would have to wait for the printer to finish before you could do anything else! You will notice the delay only on long documents.

   Print in reverse order: Prints the page from last to first, which is useful option for some ink jet printers. While pages come out of a laser printer face down, a page printed by most ink jet printers comes out of the printer face up. This give the ink a second to dry before the next page lands on it.  If the printer prints the pages in normal order (1, 2, 3...), you have to re-sort the whole stack to get page one on top. This is not much of a problem for 2 or 3 pages, but it's a real pain for 20 or 30, especially if the pages are not numbered! Some printers will automatically change the print order for you, so check that out before marking this option.

6. Click on the OK button to close the Word Options dialog.

   Word 2007: You are back in the Print dialog.
   Word 2010, 2013, 2016: You are back in the document instead of print preview. Click the Print Preview and Print button on the Quick Access Toolbar to get back to that pane.

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Print

Check with your instructor about which documents to submit and how to submit them - printed or electronically.

1.   To actually print (at last!):

   Word 2007: In the Print dialog, click on OK.
   Word 2010, 2013, 2016: Click  the big Print button on the Print Preview and Print pane.
   

   The print job will start, using the default settings for the printer you chose unless you made changes.

   An icon for the printer appears in the Notification Area of the Taskbar. If you double-click the icon, a window appears that lists all of the print jobs that are waiting for this particular printer and gives you the status of the job, sort of.
   

   If several computers share the same printer, your print job will have to wait its turn in the queue.

   The illustration shows the print queue for a networked computer. The Status columns shows "Error - Printing", but does not give any clues as to what is wrong. It could be as simple as needing more paper. The printer could have a paper jam, or be turned off or not be connected to the network. Whatever the cause, the second job in the queue won't print until the first job prints or is canceled and the problem is fixed.

   Once the computer has sent the data on the document to the printer's memory, it thinks that the job has been done and the job vanishes from the list. But the printer may not have printed any of it at all!

   Do not close your document until your print job is finished AND you have checked that the page(s) printed correctly! 

2. Collect your printed document from the printer's out tray. 
   
3. Check for errors.
   
4. If all is fine, close the document and close Word. If prompted to save the document, say Yes. (That means Word thinks you made a change since the last save. Even a click counts. Did you click inside the document after saving the last time?)
   

5.  Backup your Class disk, that is, copy all the files on the Class disk to your Backup device.

   Make it a habit to have at least two copies of your documents. When one copy gets trashed or the device is lost, it won't be a disaster if you have a backup copy.

   Consider keeping a copy at a cloud-based storage service like Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, or Google Drive. If you have space on a network server for storage, use it for backup copies of all your work.