Default Print setting - Powerpoint 2002

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Guest

Quick little question:

Is it possible to set the default print settings for Powerpoint 2002? I am
going into the options, and setting "Use the following print settings"
- Handouts (3 slides per page)
- Pure Black and White

When I close Powerpoint, and re-open it, those settings are lost. I even
tried to save a new presentation as pwrpnt.pot (C:\Windows\Shellnew) and
Generic.pot (C:\Programs Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033) with those
settings, but that does not seem to stick either.
 
Is it possible to set the default print settings for Powerpoint 2002? I am
going into the options, and setting "Use the following print settings"
- Handouts (3 slides per page)
- Pure Black and White
Click to expand...

This is a per-presentation setting rather than an application level setting.
If you re-open the presentation that was open when you set these (and saved
the presentation), they should be set the way you want.
PowerPoint even gives you a little hint that this is the case ... if you
choose Tools, Options, Print tab with no presentation open, that whole
section is grayed out. Since it's a presentation-specific setting, it
wouldn't make sense to let you apply the settings to a presentation that
isn't there. ;-)

What you might do is to create a new blank presentation based on the
template you'd like to use as your default, set the options, then save it.
Set it to Read-Only as a reminder.
Then instead of starting a new presentation, open this "pseudo template"
presentation, save it to a new name and you should be good to go.
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

A application level setting is what we were looking for. Students are
wasting a ton of paper printing out the power-point presentations.
Is there a way to set the "pseudo template" as a "default template" ?
 
A application level setting is what we were looking for. Students are
wasting a ton of paper printing out the power-point presentations.
Is there a way to set the "pseudo template" as a "default template" ?
Click to expand...

None that I know of. This is a PRIME candidate for a trip to

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

where you can register your request for a way of setting defaults for
PowerPoint printing.
This is a fairly common problem, as you can imagine (as in: every computer
lab that has PowerPoint?)
It'd make a great feature addition to PowerPoint.

What are the students printing? Are the presentations e.g. handouts from
the profs or is it their own work?
If handouts, consider handing out PDFs made from the PPT files rather than
the PPTs themselves.
You could print handouts from PPT to PDF and so force the issue. ;-)
Also, with PDF, there are ways of creating more useful n-up handouts than
PPT itself can create.

There are even Acrobat plugins that will take a straight PDF and convert it
to n-up handouts ( see Quite Imposing at www.quite.com )
 
It is possible to ....

Add a ppa file that captures PowerPoint events and write a ppa that captures
the open presentation and new presentation events that would ...

set the print defaults to any presentation to 3 up and Pure B&W.


Do you know vba?
B
 
I probably should add that this would be a machine level fix. Each machine
would need to have these ppa files added manually. If this means 16
machines it is doable, if it is for 1000, then perhaps another route would
be better.

The solution could be incorporated into a single ppa file, but since there
are a couple of excellent capture add-in's already written, I do not see any
advantage in re-inventing this part of the wheel.


B
 
Re Events and PPAs
I probably should add that this would be a machine level fix. Each machine
would need to have these ppa files added manually. If this means 16
machines it is doable, if it is for 1000, then perhaps another route would
be better.

The solution could be incorporated into a single ppa file, but since there
are a couple of excellent capture add-in's already written, I do not see any
advantage in re-inventing this part of the wheel.
Click to expand...

Come to think of it, wasn't Shyam thinking about doing an addin for just
this purpose? Over to you, Shyam ...

Another approach would be an addin/PPA that removes the existing Print menu
item and Print button, replaces them with a macro that does the necessary
3-up deed. If it also set the defaults for the presentation, it'd sidestep
the problem of the student pressing Ctrl+P to print.
 
Hello,

If you have access to each student machine, you can accomplish something
close to this (with a bit of work) by creating a custom "Blank.pot" as
follows

1) New (blank presentation)
2) Tools -> Options ... go to Print tab
3) Change the "Default print settings for this document" to print
"Handounts (3 slides per page)", click OK
4) Edit -> Delete Slide
5) Save As... (change "Save as type" to "Design Template (*.pot)") as
filename "Blank.pot"

By default this will be placed in the user templates folder for the account
you are logged on with.

<drive>\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application
Data\Microsoft\Templates\

Copy this presentation (Blank.pot) to each user templates folder on each
computer. Now, when someone create a new presentation from these computers
it will use the "Blank.pot" initially (pulling in the default print
settings for that design). Even if they change the design of the
presentation, applying a new design to an existing presentation doesn't
affect the default print settings for that presentation.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that PowerPoint should
include an option to control default print options for users/groups
(perhaps using system policies), don't forget to send your feedback to
Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also why it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

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