Can't Print to PDF from Office Applications
Printing to the FileCenter PDF printer from Microsoft Office applications can be affected by a setting called background printing. If printing to PDF isn't working, try disabling this option. This article describes how to do it.
What Are The Consequences?
When background printing is enabled, it makes it so you can keep working in Word while your print job gets sent to the printer. If you disable the option, you'll have to wait while your print job is sent to the printer. But this is a minor inconvenience – you already wait with most of your other programs.
The problem with background printing is that programs which integrate with the print function can't connect to it reliably. It's a common problem that affects many programs.
Office 2007 and Newer
For Microsoft Word:
- Click Word's "File" tab in the upper left-hand corner
- Click "Options" at the bottom of the menu of options
- Select the "Advanced" option on the left
- Scroll down to the "Print" section
- Deselect "Print in Background"
- Click OK
Repeat this procedure for your other Office programs.
Office 2003/XP and Older
For Microsoft Word:
- Go to Word's "Tools" menu > "Options"
- Select the "Print" tab
- Deselect "Background Printing"
- Click OK
Repeat this procedure for your other Office programs.
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