*** From the Archives ***
This article is from June 24, 2006, and is no longer current.
Changing the Default Printer
Ian from Switzerland writes:
I cannot print through InDesign nor Illustrator, the little color spinning wheels spins forever, basically I have to do a force-quit everytime.
I tried resetting the OS (X.4.6) printing system and have this idea that it has to do with Flashpaper being installed. When I read the default print preset in the InDesign box it says Flash paper… which makes no sense as my main printer is an Epson and is the one configured as main in the system preferences.
Where can I ditch and/or replace the defaults preset for Adobe? And why has a total reset of the printing system even using Fixamac’s Printer Setup Repair not worked.
I am at the end of my wit, I even reinstalled InDesign.
Thanks a million,
A SAD GRAPHIC DESIGNER WHO COULD JUST AS WELL CRY TONIGHT
Ian, I’ve been at the end of my own wit more times than I can count, so I’m hearing you, friend. I hope you’re feeling better today. Remember, it’s just a computer! It’s only a computer!
Okay … Well, before you try any of my suggestions, I’d recommend you first rebuild InDesign’s preferences file. They can get damaged/corrupted over time, and especially with multiple crashes. See this post for instructions on rebuilding preferences.
By the way, reinstalling the program does not rebuild the preferences! Strange but true. Well at least on the Mac, it doesn’t. (Windows users: Does uninstalling a program also delete a user’s preferences for that program? With CS2 programs too? I have a Windows laptop but there’s nothing I want to uninstall at the moment and I’m too lazy to test. Let me know.)
Okay, so you’ve rebuilt your preferences and InDesign is acting fine except for that printing thing. All your other programs are seeing your Epson printer as the default, yes?
Do this:
- Close any InDesign documents but leave the program running
- Go to File > Print Presets > Define
- With the [Default] entry selected in the Print Presets dialog box, click the Define button. You’re now at the General panel of the Print dialog box, editing the settings for your Default preset.
- See the Printer: drop-down menu towards the top? It should say Default Printer. If it doesn’t, choose Default Printer from that menu.
- Click the OK button to close the Print dialog box and return to the Print Presets dialog box. You should see your Epson printer listed as the default printer in the summary field at the bottom.
- Click OK to close the Print Presets dialog box.
Now, create a new document and choose Print. You should see that your Epson printer is chosen by default. Go ahead and send the file to print even if it’s empty (this may not be necessary, but it’s part of my own personal voodoo), then quit InDesign, and restart it again.
Create a new document and once again go to File > Print. Is the Epson still the default printer? Should be.
If these steps didn’t help you solve the problem, then I’d suggest trying one or more of the following troubleshooting routines:
- Download a new Epson driver or whatever sort of file that came with it (if any … I don’t have an ink jet so I’m not sure what they come with. I know PPDs are only for PostScript printers, which an out-of-the-box Epson is not). Replace the old Epson file with the new one, restart the Mac, check your Printer Setup Utility as before to make it the default, then check InDesign again.
- Test a different user account on your Mac to see if their InDesign (same InDesign app, of course, just different user preferences) is showing the same symptoms. If not, there’s something glitchy in your User > Library folder. If the other user account is having the same problems, then hmmm, not sure what to tell you.
- Run the usual OS X troubleshooting … repair permissions, check with Disk Utility, etc.
I did find this TechNote on Adobe’s site about using inkjets with Illustrator CS2, maybe it’d help:
https://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/322680.html
Please comment on this post to follow-up, I’m curious which, if any, of these suggestions helped you out!
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Anne-Marie, to answer your Windows question…re-installing the program will NOT delete the user’s preferences, at least it didn’t when I had a problem a while back with Photoshop. That’s because, in its wisdom, Adobe puts the preferences file(s) somewhere in the user’s Documents and Settings folder. That allows different users of the same PC to have different preferences. (I have always thought the concept of Documents and Settings to be stupid because I don’t know of many cases where different users share the computer logging on with different user names, but I suppose this happens somewhere.)
My Photoshop problem was interesting, by the way. I was experimenting with a dual-monitor setup. I had a huge Photoshop window on one monitor and dialog boxes on the other. After disconnecting the monitor and restarting, I couldn’t find certain Photoshop dialog boxes. I finally reasoned that they were offscreen, because when I previously closed Photoshop, they were on the second monitor. Along the way, I reinstalled the program (loads of fun!), only to find exactly the same problem. A little Googling helped me figure out that the preferences files don’t get replaced/rewritten when you reinstall. But once you figure out where they are located, you can just delete them and everything returns to default.
The command to reset pallete locations (curiously missing from InDesign and Illustrator) doesn’t necessarily help in this situation, because I had manually dragged dialog boxes to the other monitor. Dialog boxes apparently don’t get reset when the pallete locations are reset.
Windows will remove preferences for any program when you uninstall it from the add/remove programs.
Sometimes during the uninstallation – an extra window appears asking if you wish to do a complete uninstall or a partial one. Choosing the complete uninstall option will remove all preferences, settings, templates, and printer controls (if any).
Preference files for most programs can be found under the appropriate user names in the Documents and Settings folder – not under the applications folder. In corporate enterprises as well as at home, different people often use the same computer which can result in torrid frustration because when the 15 year old computer expert alters the printer settings for his homework paper, “poor old dad” the computer newbie can’t get the printer settings back to its 8×14 landscape orientation to print his 200 files of client spreadsheet information.
In my 22 years as a father of three and 12 years as an enterprise CTO, I’ve seen what happens when a person alters another person’s settings and the results are not pretty – even if it was unintentional.
BluScarab, thanks for that info! So yes, I did find my ID prefs in Documents and Settings … and I agree w/you that multiple accts makes a lot of sense when more than one person is on the computer. It’s even handy when you’re the *only* user of the computer for testing/troubleshooting purposes.
Do you know, Blu, if you say “yes I want a complete uninstall” does Windows delete the prefs from every user’s account or just the one that’s logged in at the time of the uninstall?
Do you know if its possible in CS5.5 to set the print default so that printing prints just the current page, rather than the entire document? As it is, I’m constantly having to stop long print jobs in a panic, when in fact I just want the current page printed. Back in the PageMaker days, this wasn’t as issue.
Thanks