Default Printer changes

I've seen numerous people with this problem - when printing a document to PDF (any app - click File, Print, chose Adobe PDF), Adobe sometimes resets the default Windows printer to Adobe PDF. There's no particular combination that does - or does not - cause this to happen, making it impossible to troubleshoot. We're using Acrobat Pro 7 (most are 7.0.7), Win XP Pro, Office XP. If you search Google, you will see numerous versions of Adobe doing this.

I am having a similar problem. My default printer always changes back to the HP 7200. I know Acrobat is doing this because it started immediately after the installation of Acrobat 8. I am using version 8.1.0. This morning when I logged in, the HP was the default printer. I changed the default back to the Dell printer. After using Outlook, Word, and Acrobat 8 reader, the printer is once again printing to the HP7200, and that is now listed as the default on the printers and faxes screen. This is truly driving me crazy. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Betty Corbin
bcorbin [at] mail [dot] aum [dot] edu

I am having the same problem described in the initial question. You said you need more information to track this down....
Q: What applications is this happening with? In those applications, what printer are you printing to?
A: MS Word and saving as or printing to Adobe PDF.
Q: If not the "Adobe PDF" printer, what makes you think that "Adobe" (whatever that means) is changing your default printer?
A: I printer to my printer and the minute I save as or print to Adobe PDF, my default printer is now Adobe PDF instead of my HP3055 or HP3600. What makes me think is is Adobe? This never happened until I installed and used Acrobat Standard 8.0.
Q: What OS (and version thereof) are you running under?
A: Microsoft Windows XP Pro.
I hope that answers enough for you to acknowledge there is an issue being caused by Adobe Acrobat and fix it.
Q: printer models and drivers being used, what "port" they are connected to, etc.
A: HP 3055 and HP3600 wireless network printers through standard TCP/IP ports.
The most frustrating part is that once I have printed to or saved as a PDF in one application, every other application (Word, Outlook, Excel, even PDF files) go to the new default printer, Adobe. So I have to reset the default to my HP every time.

Obviously I would not typically want to print a PDF of a PDF, which leads me to believe it is a system glitch.

This is how my tech support fixed my problem described above of the printer defaulting to the HP 7200. My tech support person did a run msconfig and went into the startup group. She unchecked everything having to do with Adobe. This solved the problem. The problem had started immediately after she installed Adobe Design Premium CS3 on my computer. Anyhow, I'm glad it's fixed. Hope this helps you understand what might have caused the problem. To give you a little info on my environment, I'm under Windows XP. I have 8 hardware printers listed on my printers and fax list. They are all network connected. The HP7200, the printer that the default was changing to, is the last hardware printer on the list, and it is rarely, if ever, my default.
Betty Corbin

Dov,

I am an IT tech and experienced this issue on serveral of my customer's PCs as well as my own. I would like to troubleshoot this issue with you, if you don't mind. If there is some kind of logging/tracking software you would like to install on my PC it is OK with me. The PC I am personally experiencing this on is not one for critical use so if we encountered any major problems I would just restore from a bare metal backup image I create regularly. Please let me know what special things I could do to help resolve this issue. I will say "thanks" in advance.

We have experienced Adobe switching the default printer with Office, but have noticed something related to the naming convention of the printer (we have over 90 printers in our environment). We have printers named:
18_South
18_SouthCentral
18_SouthEast
18_SouthWest
18_East

If the default is 18_SouthCentral, 18_SouthEast or 18_SouthWest it will change it 18_South after converting a document to .pdf. If the default printer is 18_South or 18_East then it always goes back to the correct default printer. It seems in our environment that if the printer name is contained within another printer's name (18_South is contained in 18_SouthEast) then the problem occurs. It seems to be irrelevant of the make, model or driver and seems totally related to the naming convention. It is almost like it is looking for a 8.3 naming convenion of some sort. You can watch the The Acrobat PDFMaker doing a temporary change of the current printer to Adobe PDF in order to produce PostScript for distillation (you see the default printer checkmark go to the Acrobat distiller). It is supposed to set the current printer back to whatever the previous value was when it was done, but in our case you can see the checkmark for the default printer goes back to 18_South in this example. So, it appears to have something to do with the default printer. This is not limited to just these group of printers as we have many more floors with the same scenario of one printer's name being contained within another's. It would be interesting to see if someone else is having the same problem or can reproduce this in a MS Office environment.

I am having the same problem. Every time I PDF something Acrobat changes my default printer to Adobe PDF. This really is a very frustrating bug as I am in and out of acrobat regularly and have to reset by default everytime.

Surely someone at Adobe can recreate this bug ?

Thanks
Nick

Nick,

Look at my previous post and let me know if the same scenario applies where one printer's name is contained within another printer's name (18_South is contained in 18_SouthEast). It would be interesting to see if you can reproduce the default printer swiching problem that I am experiencing.

KMKLAW

What a relief to find this forum. I run Windows XP SP2 and have had similar symptoms of the default printer being changed after PDF conversion but with one small difference. Although I use Acrobat Professional 7 for more serious work, I often use the freeware programme "Primo PDF" for quickly printing to a PDF file from MS Word.

Now here's the thing. Twice recently this has changed my default printer to Primo PDF! This had never happened previously in 2 years of usage but the difference on both these occasions was that I was converting multiple, multi-page documents in succession. Previously I had only been using the programme to convert single page documents and often only in single sessions.

I have a hunch about this. Could it be that if the same printer selection is made (other than the default printer) several times in succession the default is changed to that printer? Also that this behaviour is Microsoft based rather than anything to do with Adobe or any other print-to-PDF type programme?

Most people have one printer which they use all the time and never have to change the setting except when using something like a PDF printer driver. This could explain why there is a high incidence of this behaviour among the Acrobat users community.

I could be way off base here but would welcome any other views.

Thanks KMKLAW. I'm afraid I cannot recreate the problem you're having with the default printer switching to a similarly named one, it just switches to Adobe PDF as the default priner.

Thanks
Nick

Greetings.

I also have the same problem. My printer default changes to Adobe from HP LaserJet 1320tn. Amazinly this only happens with my new 1 month old Dell Inspiron 530, which has XP Professional, and Microsoft 2007, Photoshop CS3 and Adobe 8.0 Professional.

My older computer has XP Professional and Microsoft 2003, Photoshop CS3 and Adobe 8.0 Professional, and does not have this dificulty.

Can anyone HELP. This is becoming a nuisance!! Especially when my computer guru does not believe!!

Wilbert

I am just wondering if this issue has been resolved. While searching for a way to prevent change of a default printer I came across this thread, which seems to be discussing a very similar problem to what we are experiencing in our retail store. We have a Point of Sale system that we use to take orders over the phone, as well as to serve customers in our store. We have 8 machines networked together using Win XP (both Home and Pro versions). We print invoices from a DOS based program that runs in Win XP Pro. The software (Alpha4 Version 8) allows us the option of printing a report to an External PDF printer that is listed in the local printers folder on any machine that has the A4 software installed. The email client pops up in a window, showing the report as an attached PDF. This all works very well. But, after addressing and sending the email, the External PDF printer is then designated as the default printer in the printers folder. This makes it difficult to print any other work unless staff can remember to go into the printer folder and re-designate the appropriate printer for that desktop machine. We would like to fix this bug so we can eliminate this extra, and bothersome step in our work flow. Any help with stopping this from happening would be appreciated.
Don Clark
The Pro Shop, Inc.

Another *bump* to this thread. We are experiencing the same strange problem (Adobe PDF becoming the default printer every time) with one machine here in Helsinki University Central Hospital. Just in one of many similar computers. Have there been any developments on the issue?

I noted btw, that you don't even need to actually create the PDF file. Just clicking the 'Convert to Adobe PDF'-button and canceling is enough.

In case somebody is still researching the issue: We're using XP Pro SP2, MS Office 2003, Adobe Acrobat Standard 7.0, Distiller 7.0 and Reader 7.0, though some machines have several different versions of the Adobe Reader. The problematic computer had Reader 8.0 along with 7.0.

I too have experienced this problem yet note no Adobe employee/ moderator has responded since Oct 2007. I am pinging "issacs" separately and emailing the following per his suggestion in that post. He or I will be sure to post back the results.

I seem to be able to replicate this problem at will. I have a Dell color laser printer and a Brother B&W laser. The Dell has a network address (which can always be pinged); the Brother is attached to a Motorola wireless print server. The Dell has bidirectional support enabled; this feature is N/A for the Brother.[b]Problem Case: [/b] The Dell is the Default Printer as set by Control Panel. The Dell goes into Powersave mode. Result: When printing from Acrobat Reader, and [u]only[/u] Acrobat Reader, the default printer is changed from Dell to Brother! [color=red]No[/color] other program on my machine changes the default printer. The only remedy is to go back to Control-Printers and change the default manually.

Acrobat Reader changes the default to the Brother [i]even if the Brother is turned off![/i] Perhaps more interestingly, if the Dell is re-selected manually as the Default Printer, Acrobat Reader does [i]not[/i] try to change it back to the Brother.

[b]Control Case 1: [/b] The Dell is the Default Printer but is [u]not[/u] in Powersave mode. Result: Acrobat Reader prints normally to the Dell.

[b]Control Case 2: [/b] The Brother is the default printer. Result: Acrobat Reader will [u]always[/u] try to print to it, whether on/ready, in powersave, or turned off.

IMO, Acrobat Reader does some sort of query to the printer, decides that the printer state is not satisfactory, and unilaterally changes the printer, not just for its print session, but changes the default for [b][i]all[/b][/i] print sessions for [b][i]all[/b][/i] applications thereafter :-(

I concur. I am using Vista Ultimate SP1 and Dell 1720dn as a local printer. I had not noticed the power saving mode before but I do know that Adobe screws up my default printer all the time. It is very difficult to reproduce but the default printer is selected randomly and it changes almost every day.

This issue is extremely annoying and may only be resolved by removing Adobe completely.

Acrobat Distiller is my pdf printer that came with Acrobat-6. To convert a Word document having a hearder and a footer with precise margins, I get a pdf page with smaller margins and zero footer. Is it about the settings or the printer properties? Please email me. Thanks.

Before you reply: Thank you, I found the reason: I went to Distiller properties and to Advanced - Layout and Scaling: the scaling was at 110%. I returned it to 100% and the header-Footer and margins are the same as in the initial Word file.
Thank you.

Windows XP, Word 2003, Acrobat Pro 7.0 - Printing single pages using the Word menu button 'Convert to PDF' works fine. When I try to print a booklet of 51 pages this way Word appends (Read only) after .doc of my document title, and locks up. The default printer changes from HP720C to Adobe PDF. I have to use Task Manager to close Word and then reset my default printer. However, I can print the 51 page booklet perfectly normally if I select File>Print>Adobe PDF, and my HP printer remains the default printer. Where is the problem, Word or Adobe Acrobat?

thank's a lot.
http://www.soft-windows.com/

My office is also having the same problem - when saving as a pdf, the default printer changes to Adobe PDF and does not change back. It only seems to happen with Microsoft Word. It does NOT happen in Wordperfect.
Also, if I choose the print command and then select Adobe PDF, everything works fine and my default printer remains the same. It does not change to Adobe PDF. This got me to thinking that the save as pdf command is where the problem lies. It turns out that I can disable the com add-in (PDFMofficeaddin.dll) from the word options page and it will work. I still have the option to save as pdf. It looks a little different but it works the same and does not change my default printer.
Finally! after almost a year of trying to figure this out.

I recall that when Acrobat Pro 8 was installed on this system, everyone thought it was a really cool thing that from MS Word 2003, you now had the capability to create PDFs . It worked OK for a while, but then we noticed that whenever you used this feature, the default printer designation was changed to Acrobat Distiller. I also noticed that when you create a PDF from Open Office 3.1, it doesn't change the default printer, it just makes very nice PDFs for you and goes on about its business. We thought we had it chased down to a particular method for making a PDF from Word, but it turns out not so and now it seems we had to start over, but then I found that there seems to be a correlation, as tjwill found out, between the default printer switcheroo, and using the PDF IKON on the tool bar. I have shown that making a PDF from the File/ Print menu doesn't affect printers, but some are stubborn, and opening that pesky File/Print involves two whole extra clicks! Oh MY!!

My default printer is also being changed, but Acrobat isn’t the culprit. You see, I don’t have Acrobat installed. I use ScanSoft PDF Create to create PDF files from Word or Excel, and there’s a PDF Converter in QuickBooks, too. I suspect this issue relates to how MS office handles add-ins. (It’s not just Word.) Or perhaps some Windows update did this – this wasn’t always a problem, and I’ve installed nothing new.

I’m running WindowsXP Pro, Office 2002, QuickBooks Pro 2007, and ScanSoft PDF Professional 4. My list of available “printers” includes:
* Canon MF6500 (FAX)
* Canon MF6500
* DocuCom PDF Driver
* HP DesignJet 455CA (Network)
* HP Deskjet 5400 (Network)
* HP LaserJet 5000 (Network)
* Intuit Internal Printer
* QuickBooks PDF Converter
* ScanSoft PDF Create!
* SHARP AR-201 (Network)
* UPS labels

Default is supposed to be Canon MF6500.
If I convert a Word document or Excel spreadsheet to PDF, the default printer often (not always) changes to “ScanSoft PDF Create”. But if I print from QuickBooks to “UPS labels”, that may become the new default, IF I have an MS Office application open. I’ve even seen the default change to “Canon MF6500 (FAX)” although I’ve never used that intentionally.

The only consistent thing I’ve seen is that when these changes happen, I always have some MS Office application open, whether or not that’s the application from which I selected the printer that becomes the new default.

Puzzling, but definitely not Acrobat.

Hi, I uses acrobat pr0 9 o windows XP , I want my pdf files cropped , printed using adobe pdf printer(to generate new pdf) using custom pdf & paper setting, the problem is generated pdf's "art box " is different from other page boxes(they are common in values). my next step of process considers art box , always some information get cut
Eralier we were using acrobat 7 , which works and gives common values for all page boxes, when printed using adobe pdf printer
Any solution for this

Thanks

I have two users with the same problem. They create pdf files and print them.The default printer goes to the pdf prnter and remains there until the user changes it. This occurs when ADOBE 8 is
used.

Hi Guys,

I saw this thread in looking for other information and thought I should sign up and share some info.

We came across this problem a while ago and tracked it down to this thread. it seems to have fixed our issues. I hope they solve yours.

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1269901437620+28353475&threadId=1071819What we found was that if there was a software printer installed (ie. Adobe Distiller or others) the default printer would keep defaulting to that not because windows was changing it too the adobe one but because the hp printer was dumping the default status from itself.

Mind you I am sure there are variations to the cause, however I recommend you try the couple of solutions in the HP thread above.


Kind Regards

Ben Camilleri
Online Services Manager
Raceweek Accommodation
http://www.raceweek.com.au

can anyone please tell me : the progress bar of adobe printer is showing blank while printing instead of showing printing progress ??

I have adobe acrobat pro 8 installed in the computer ..........................................and printing is getting very slow although i had set '' smallest file size '' in printing preferences ....................................................................( in compared to before formatting the computer and all the softwares are installed in full versions ; adobe pro 8 also )