Excel 2003 - Common file prints differently for different users

LaOs

Apologies--I originally posted this on the MrExcel.com forums but there have been no replies, so I wanted to see what the userbase here knew. Sorry for the cross-posting (but thanks for your help!)

Hey, this is a rather strange situation...

At work we have this Excel program that prints out barcode labels, automatically updating the labels for new sheets as needed. It's stored on a shared drive and has been formatted to print correctly out of one printer attached to one workstation.

When I log into that workstation as my profile, the labels align properly and print perfectly. However, when my coworker logs into the same workstation and accesses the same file (both of us access it from the community-shared drive), the labels do not align nor print properly.

I cannot imagine why the same file is behaving differently for her than it does for me, and the only thing I can think of as different is the difference in her logging in as her profile or me logging in as my profile.

Could this really be the difference? And if it is, why is it, since it doesn't make any sense. Hopefully there's some other problem I'm missing, and I'm more than happy to answer and clarification requests. I just don't get why the same file is acting up like this for her but not for me.

Thanks for your time and help!

JHunz

Do your profiles use the same printer drivers for that printer?

Daenris

Well, printing preferences may very well be saved with the user profile. If you open the file and look at the Page Setup and printer options and whatnot, are they different when you're logged in as different users? If so, just correct this, save, close, log off, and it should be okay for the future.

LaOs

JHunz wrote: »

Do your profiles use the same printer drivers for that printer?

I'm not sure. What's the easy way to check that for sure?

LaOs

Daenris wrote: »

Well, printing preferences may very well be saved with the user profile. If you open the file and look at the Page Setup and printer options and whatnot, are they different when you're logged in as different users? If so, just correct this, save, close, log off, and it should be okay for the future.

I had come across that possibility, and where I found that, I also found that supposedly locking the workbook was supposed to prevent a user's defaults from overriding the settings within the sheet... but maybe that wouldn't work?

I'll look into it, though. Thanks.

whuppins

Hmmmm, is this the program we worked on together? I hope it's not giving you any trouble. I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but PM me if there are some program-specific issues you'd like me to take a look at.

LaOs

whuppins wrote: »

Hmmmm, is this the program we worked on together? I hope it's not giving you any trouble. I don't have an answer off the top of my head, but PM me if there are some program-specific issues you'd like me to take a look at.

Well, it is, but it's the simpler one of the many versions we have of it... it's just the barcode labels, without the well locations or anything. (The incrementation and everything else is working just fine for both of us.)

It's just such a strange problem to be having. I could understand if my coworker was trying to print on a different printer, because I've experienced troubles doing that, but I've gone and painstakingly aligned the columns and rows to print correctly on this one printer, and even there it's giving her grief. So odd.

So far as program-specific issues, I don't think there are any, aside from this strange printing problem, and I don't know if that's really program-specific in the sense you mean.

Pheezer

Daenris wrote: »

Well, printing preferences may very well be saved with the user profile. If you open the file and look at the Page Setup and printer options and whatnot, are they different when you're logged in as different users?

They don't, they're stored in the file.

Is her screen resolution the same as yours? That might do it.

There should be an option in the image preferences or whatever for each barcode to have them move/resize with the cell they're attached to. You probably want to get that checked, so that they're bound to whichever cell you set them on top of.

LaOs

Pheezer wrote: »

Daenris wrote: »

Well, printing preferences may very well be saved with the user profile. If you open the file and look at the Page Setup and printer options and whatnot, are they different when you're logged in as different users?

They don't, they're stored in the file.

Is her screen resolution the same as yours? That might do it.

There should be an option in the image preferences or whatever for each barcode to have them move/resize with the cell they're attached to. You probably want to get that checked, so that they're bound to whichever cell you set them on top of.

I thought the preferences were set in the file, yeah, but anyway... :P

I'm not sure what you mean about images, Pheezer, so I may be reading you wrong, but there are no images involved at all in the file/with the barcodes--it's all text.

Would her screen resolution matter outside of your concern with images?

Pheezer

When you said barcode labels I thought you meant the vertical lines, stored as images on a spreadsheet.

The reason I say it's definitely a file setting is that I have a dozen things I print, each of which has its own defaults, some of which are different from one worksheet tab to the next, which all persist. There's no way it's creating a new entry in my user profile every single time I create a spreadsheet.

I hope. That'd be absurd if it were.

It sounds like you might have a case of Excel just bein' weird? I don't know, have you tried setting the file to print correctly on her profile, and then saving it? Also, is this a single file on a shared drive, or is it a file that's been e-mailed to her?

I no longer suspect screen resolution if there are no images involved. But I guess anything's possible with Office.

LaOs

Pheezer wrote: »

When you said barcode labels I thought you meant the vertical lines, stored as images on a spreadsheet.

The reason I say it's definitely a file setting is that I have a dozen things I print, each of which has its own defaults, some of which are different from one worksheet tab to the next, which all persist. There's no way it's creating a new entry in my user profile every single time I create a spreadsheet.

I hope. That'd be absurd if it were.

It sounds like you might have a case of Excel just bein' weird? I don't know, have you tried setting the file to print correctly on her profile, and then saving it? Also, is this a single file on a shared drive, or is it a file that's been e-mailed to her?

I no longer suspect screen resolution if there are no images involved. But I guess anything's possible with Office.

Oh. Yeah, it's not images at all. Those vertical lines in the barcode are actually one of many types of fonts. Its all text.

It's clearly Excel being weird, but that's lame and there's got to be some reason, no? haha.

It's one file stored on a communcal drive that we can both access. We open the exact same version of the file each time.

I could piss around with the margins and make it work for her, I guess, but that's going to be a pain in the ass and if it doesn't work, I need to re-fix it so it at least works for me... and having two files will work, I guess, but makes the process more confusing for people who have enough trouble just using the program as-is, and loses the consistency from one printing batch to the other, which is important to maintain.

Hopefully there's another way than simply making her a new version of the file. Thanks though.

Pheezer

Here's what you do:
You record a macro. Open the file in exclusive mode on her machine, and record a macro of you re-sizing everything to be correct. Save the file.

Now whenever she needs to print, she runs that macro and lookit that it's perfect and prints just right.

LaOs

Well that works, I suppose. I'd have to change it so the file wasn't auto-saving itself after printing a batch though, and that still has me doing all the shit to re-align everything for her to print (which may not be a very nice macro, since it will all be trial and error...)

But, if it comes down to it, that'll work I guess. Thanks.

What's exclusive mode?

Pheezer

Oh, I just mean if you have Shared Workbook enabled. You can't run macros in that mode.

Also, why wouldn't you be able to have it auto-save?

LaOs

Pheezer wrote: »

Oh, I just mean if you have Shared Workbook enabled. You can't run macros in that mode.

Also, why wouldn't you be able to have it auto-save?

Oh, cool.

If I save the changes of making it fit when she prints, when I open it to print, it's going to be off again.

Pheezer

Yeah but that's the beauty of the macro: You can just keep running it.

LaOs

I think I'm not fully understanding what you're intending the macro to do, then. The way I'm reading it, the macro you suggest should record me changing the file so it prints properly for her and then saving the file. So, at the end of the whole procedure, the file has been permanently changed to print properly for her--she would not need to run the macro again. And, if I wanted to print the labels, I'd have to change everything back to how it was before (which, I guess, would necessitate her running the macro again).

Either way, it is a viable workaround (changing the file), but I was really hoping there might be some idea as to why it is behaving this way and how we might troublshoot that.

Pheezer

I think it's probably not printing the same because either the column widths or the print settings are defaulting to an unworkable state. A macro that resets all of the column widths and print zoom and everything else to a setting that works perfectly with the printer should be able to be ran on both machines and result in the exact same print. Try it, and if it results in different prints on both machines, even though you know for a fact that it's forcing the exact same sizes, widths, and print settings, then something is well and truly fucked and I surrender.

LaOs

Pheezer wrote: »

I think it's probably not printing the same because either the column widths or the print settings are defaulting to an unworkable state. A macro that resets all of the column widths and print zoom and everything else to a setting that works perfectly with the printer should be able to be ran on both machines and result in the exact same print. Try it, and if it results in different prints on both machines, even though you know for a fact that it's forcing the exact same sizes, widths, and print settings, then something is well and truly fucked and I surrender.

Ha. Okay... dinger. Thanks for your help though.