Slides Won’t Print

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Hi guys,

I’m experiencing a weird problem with PowerPoint 2016 on both Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 Pro.

In short, when printing some of my larger slide decks (to an HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw), only the first page prints. No matter what settings I use — I’m partial to including hidden slides and use a 6-slide horizontal layout — I can get only the first page to print.

It doesn’t seem to matter that a pop-up box in PowerPoint shows that the entire deck is printing; here’s a screenshot.

FYI, I have other giant decks that print without any problems.

The lounge doesn’t permit large files to be uploaded, so I’ve uploaded the 52 MB file (it’s almost 200 slides) to Dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bo0ptv1eoy1igum/PowerPoint%20for%20AskWoody.pptx?dl=0

Any advice?

Thanks a ton!

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Don’t know if it will help but over the years printing problems involve the Print Spooler in Windows along with the amount of RAM in the printer/s.  Sometimes for large jobs it has helped to make a setting change in the Properties of the printer to Print directly to the printer instead of starting the printing when it has completed loading into the printer.

Forgot to mention, tried to download that file but only got the first page/image.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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WSJon5

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Thanks, Berton. Here are my printer settings:

I just changed the “spooling” option to “print directly to the printer,” but now nothing will print; instead, I get the following error:

Do you think this means the problem lies with my printer, rather than PowerPoint?

Thanks again.

P.S. Sorry for the delay; the lounge never emailed me that I had replies.

 

 

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I’ve just downloaded your file and it does print 198 pages to PDF.
Try that option, then try print from within your chosen PDF editor/viewer.

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WSJon5

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Thanks, Moonshine!

Printing as a PDF does indeed do the trick. I wonder if we can use this data point to determine what the root cause is? Is it a giant PPT file? This particular one?

Any thoughts?

Thanks again.

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Elly

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Hi there, Just wondering if you have any thoughts on my reply? Sorry to nag you. Thanks so much!

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Well.

Having it print the first page means the print job made it to the printer driver and then out from there, and then that stopped. Usually this means a printer driver error.

I’m not at all surprised that PowerPoint triggers that kind of thing – seen it before, too. Might be related to slide complexity, or not.

If it works when exported to PDF and then printed from that, great – that’s probably the easiest thing to do then.

One thing I’ve noticed recently is that old HP print drivers have started generating errors on some print jobs, possibly due to some of the Windows updates… printer driver isolation seems to help some. (Not MS Office updates, some of these cases don’t have MS Office installed at all.)

If that’s the case, it just might work with a different print driver version – if you were already on the latest PCL6 one, a M477 should be able to also take at least PCL5 and likey also PostScript…

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Thanks, mn.

I downloaded and installed the latest drivers — https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-color-laserjet-pro-mfp-m477-series/7326560/model/7326586 — but this didn’t change anything.

Oh, well. Since it’s only a handful of decks that experience this problem, I guess I’ll live with the workaround (export to PDF).

Thanks.

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As print to PDF works and it’s an issue on multiple machines it’s likely to be an issue with the PowerPoint and the HP drivers. You may have to live with the work-around.
The best test is probably a different version of PP.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks, Paul. Unfortunately, I only have Office 2016 — though, since you mentioned it, it looks like there’s a newer version (2019), so I’m going to look into upgrading.

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Hi all,

I just upgraded to Office 365, and nothing changed.

Then I called HP (800-334-5144). The rep directed me to change the driver for my printer from PCL to PostScript. Which I did — and it worked! The giant slide deck (which I’ve removed from Dropbox) now prints!

For posterity, I went to http://hp.com/go/upd, downloaded the file for “HP Universal Print Driver for Windows PostScript (64-bit)” (3/11/2019), and selected the option during install for “traditional.”

Thanks again for your help!

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Elly

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Times like this, I keep wondering why HP and everyone else keep pushing PCL even when their own products work better with PS drivers…

I mean, sheesh, for a fixed installation there’s still very few things that beat plain old LPD and PostScript.

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mn– wrote:

Times like this, I keep wondering why HP and everyone else keep pushing PCL even when their own products work better with PS drivers…

I mean, sheesh, for a fixed installation there’s still very few things that beat plain old LPD and PostScript.

It may not actually be Windows they write the software for but all the sundry programs that use the Windows print process.  It has evolved a lot since back in Windows 3.x [and earlier] when each program had to write and install their own printing support such as WordPerfect for DOS 5.x and then WordPerfect for Windows 5.x when I got my first computer.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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