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How to create new, customized copies of
your favorite printer choices
Controlling the tray source (in other
software programs), ink color, and other features of your printer
from File, Print
(Includes macros
to help change to your new printer selections)
See also -
Print your letterhead page from one printer
tray, and second and subsequent pages from another tray ("two-tray printing") |
Purpose
An alternative -- or a companion -- to using
WordPerfect's File, Page Setup to define specific printer trays
(or "sources") is to create customized copies of the
installed printer driver -- the item you choose when you click
File, Print, Name:<list> before printing the document.
Extra copies of an existing printer driver
are very easy to create and they can perform several functions,
depending on your printer. For example, one copy could (if the
feature is supported by your printer) add a COPY or DRAFT watermark
on every page, just by selecting that driver at print time. Another
could print the document in monochrome on a color printer to
save expensive color ink. Once they are set up, all you need
to do is select the appropriate custom printer driver in the
File, Print drop list.
Added benefits
The custom printer selections will be available
in other Windows programs, not just in WordPerfect.
You could also set up printer drivers to select
the tray source, which should work in most other Windows programs
(but not WordPerfect: see Footnote).
Background
When you first install a printer, Windows
creates an icon for it – actually, the icon is a "virtual
printer" or "printer driver" -- in the Printers
and Faxes folder (the name given to it in Windows XP). If you
right click that icon and choose Properties, you can access various
printer settings and create custom configurations for the physical
printer.
The printer driver's name also shows up in
File, Print, along with any other printers you might have installed
on your computer or network. Simply use your mouse to select
it from the list, choose any desired print options, click Print,
and Windows takes over, sending your current print job to the
physical printer specified by the virtual printer icon.
How to do it
Now for the interesting part -- creating and
customizing one or more copies of an existing printer
driver. (The instructions are for Windows XP, but should be similar
for other Windows versions).
Since you (or whoever set up your computer
or network) will have already installed the physical printer
and a printer driver for it, you simply install the printer driver
again -- but in an abbreviated way: no need this time for a CD
or internet connection -- using the Add Printer wizard in the
Printers and Faxes folder window. Then you customize the copy/copies
with a few minutes' work.
- Click Start, Settings, Control Panel and
double click Printers and Faxes (or Printers and Other Hardware).
- First, take a quick note of the "port"
to which your printer is currently connected: Right-click the
printer's icon, choose Properties, then click the Ports tab.
Make a note of the port that is checkmarked. Click Cancel to
return to the Printers and Faxes window.
- Double click the Add Printer icon. The Add
Printer Wizard appears. Click Next.
- You are now asked if the printer is local
or on a network: Answer as appropriate. (There is no need to
check the box, "Automatically detect and install my Plug
and Play printer," because its driver was already installed
on your system! You are simply making a new copy of that driver.)
Click Next.
- Select the port the printer uses from the
"Use the following port:" list. Normally this is LPT1
(Windows provides three printer ports, LPT1-LPT3, and four serial
ports, COM1-COM4) but it could be a USB card, an IEEE hub or
some other device. As noted above, you should use the same port
checked in the original driver. (Don't worry: if you make a mistake
you can always delete the new printer driver and repeat these
installation steps, choosing an alternative if the current choice
of port doesn't work.) Click Next.
- You should now see the Install Printer Software
dialog. Since the original printer driver was installed when
the printer was first hooked up, simply scroll down in the left-hand
Manufacturer pane, choose the printer's manufacturer (e.g., HP,
or perhaps Hewlett-Packard; try both), and you should immediately
see the installed printer driver(s) for that printer in the Printers
pane. Select the appropriate driver and click Next. (Again, if
you make a mistake you can always start over after deleting this
copy of the driver.)
- In the next dialog, be sure that "Keep
existing driver" is enabled, then click Next.
- You can now name your new printer driver.
(You can also rename it later in the Printers and Faxes window.)
For example, I made a copy of my previously installed HP LaserJet
1300 driver and simply named it "HP LaserJet 1300 (DRAFT)"
to indicate that the pages will contain a diagonal DRAFT watermark
stamp on them – a nice little feature that is created directly
by my HP LaserJet 1300 printer. Notice that a radio button lets
you select the current printer as the default printer; if this
is what you want, choose it by clicking the button. Click Next
when finished.
- Tips: If Windows asks if you want to share the printer
you can answer No, since it's probably easier to set up and customize
the printer drivers first, and then set them up as computer or
network shares later as explained below. Also, the next dialog
lets you print a test page, which might be a good idea to do
at least once to ensure the copy of the printer driver is working
properly.
- Click Next, then Finish to complete the new
driver creation process and exit the wizard. You will see a new
icon in Printers and Faxes.
- Repeat the above steps for as many additional
custom printer drivers as you need, for the current printer or
any other printer for which you might want to have customized
settings.
- Now you need to customize the copies of the
printer driver(s). If you haven't already named them in during
the steps above, they will be named "<name> (Copy
x)" where <name> is the original driver name and "x"
is a sequential number.
- Right click each new copy of the printer
driver, and choose Properties. Rename the driver if you desire
it. Under Properties you will also see Location and Comments
fields, which may be useful in identifying the printer drivers
on a network.
- You then need to find the page where various
custom settings are kept for your particular printer. (On my
LaserJet they are under the Advanced tab, and accessed with a
button, "Printing Defaults.") Set up your custom configuration.
Remember that you are now working with a copy of the original
printer driver, so you should not be impacting the original in
any way. You can also set up these drivers as "shares"
on a computer or network, if desired.
- Click OK when done until you are back at
the Printers and Faxes window. Repeat this step for your other
copies. Done!
You can use these new drivers "as is"
by simply choosing the one you want in File, Print. A somewhat
more sophisticated way to use them is to incorporate them as
part of one or more macros. For example, macros can be used to
select the new printer driver(s), print all or part of a document,
then restore the printer selection back to your current printer
selection.
Macros to
change printer selections
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BELOW ARE SAMPLE MACROS THAT CAN -
(1) print the full document using the new
printer driver (e.g., all pages marked with a DRAFT watermark),
then return the printer setting back to the original setting;
or
(2) print just the first page (e.g., a letterhead
page in color) of the document using the new printer driver,
then return the printer setting back to the original setting
(monochrome).
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CREATING THE MACROS:
First, in place of the word NEWPRINTER
below, type the EXACT name (case sensitive!) you gave to the
new printer driver(s) as shown in File, Print, Name:<list>
but be sure to retain the double quote marks. [For example, I
use this newly named and configured printer driver that automatically
places a draft watermark stamp on each page: "hp Laserjet
1300 PCL 5e (DRAFT)". All I did was use the same name as
the original and add "(DRAFT)" to it, but you can name
it anything you like.]
Second, open a new blank document for each
macro and click Tools, Macro, Macro Toolbar. Press the right
arrow once or twice to place the cursor after all codes. Then
come back here and carefully select the macro of your choice
below, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C), then go to the new
document and paste it there with Edit, Paste Special, Unformatted
text. (This removes extraneous codes when you copy from an internet
source.)
Save it with the Save & Compile button
on the macro toolbar, naming it something memorable. The macros
can be saved to your default (or supplemental) macro folder as
shown in Tools, Settings, Files, Merge/Macro and assigned to
either a menu, toolbar button, or keystroke combination as explained
at EasyPlay.
- - -
// Macro #1 begins -
// (For WordPerfect version 8+)
vPRN1:="NEWPRINTER"
vPrinterName:=PrinterSelectByName (vPRN1)
PrintCopies (NumberOfCopies: 1)
Print (FullDocument!)
// The next line resets driver back to your preferred default
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PrinterSelectByName (vPrinterName)
// Macro ends
- - -
// Macro #2 begins -
// (For WordPerfect version 8+)
// Prints just the first page to the new printer
vPRN1:="NEWPRINTER"
vPrinterName:=PrinterSelectByName (vPRN1)
PrintRangeFrom (Page: 1)
PrintRangeTo (Page: 1)
PrintCopies (1)
PrintAction (MultiplePages!)
Print ()
// The next line resets driver back to your preferred default
-
PrinterSelectByName (vPrinterName)
// Macro ends
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Footnote
If your printer has multiple trays that support
various paper type or sizes you should set up separate page definitions
for them with File, Page
Setup (or Format, Page, Page Setup) and
use the codes thus produced at the top of the appropriate pages
of your document to "pull" paper from the proper trays,
as explained in more detail at 2Trays
From Charles Rossiter, Corel C_Tech (found
on Corel's WPOffice2002-other newgroup, 06/02/03):
"WordPerfect does not use the tray specified
in the printer settings; if it did, it would lose its ability
to mix any number of page size/types within a single document,
as almost all programs relying on the Windows printer driver
are limited to one or, at most two, paper size/types in a single
print job.
To set paper selection in WP, you have to
use Format, Page Setup, switch to showing Printer Page Types,
and define a paper size/type for each paper source. For
example, if you have letterhead that pulls from tray 1 and bond
that pulls from tray 3, you would create two different paper
size/types such as "Letter" and "Bond", with
almost-identical definitions except for the paper source.
This means you can mix Letter, Bond, landscape
forms, A4, etc. etc. within a single document and not have to
set anything on the printer properties itself.
In fact, on those printers having an "NT
Forms" tab in the printer properties, HP specifically says
to not use that feature with software that is capable of pulling
mixed forms, as it interferes with the software working properly."
Note that you can delay a new page
definition (e.g., from page 1) to a later page (e.g., to page
2) this way:
- Go to the top of the document and click Format,
Page, Delay Codes, 1, OK.
- Click the Page Size button on the property
bar (or click Format, Page, Page Setup). Choose the new second
page definition. Click on Apply, then OK.
- Back in the Define Delay Codes window, you
can make other formatting changes that will take effect on the
second and subsequent pages of the document, such as changing
margins or changing or adding headers or footers.
- (Users
of WP10 and later: To set all
margins back to 1.0" in the Define Delay Codes window, set
at least one margin to some other value, then change the margins
back to 1.0". This is a workaround for a small bug in these
versions.)
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Barry MacDonnell's