Re: Determining Available Paper Sizes on Printer

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

"Rick Raisley" <heavymetal-A-T-bellsouth-D-O-Tnet> wrote in message news:%23f73RTOoJHA.3984@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Works perfectly, Mike. Very helpful. Now if I can just figure out why the HP 5200, with both Letter
and 11x17 paper installed, reports only Letter, both in your code
AND in the printer's property box, despite there being 11x17
paper installed and it prints fine with it! lol! But anyhow, your
code reported the same (although incorrect) information that
the printer dialog reports, and that's exactly what I wanted.
Thanks again! ;-)

Pleased to be of help. By the way, regarding the failure to report the 11x17 paper as being available (both my code and the printer's Properties window in Control Panel), it is almost certainly because the 11x17 paper has not been officially assigned to a tray, although that doesn't mean you can't use the paper of course (as you have discovered by the fact that you can still print to it). In fact it is possible for a printer to report that no papers are available at all, and you will still be able to print to whatever paper it actually contains. In fact, as I think I mentioned in one of my previous responses in this thread, you can even deliberately set things up so that the printer's Properties window shows A5 paper as being available for a printer that contains only A4 paper, so that A5 paper is not actually physically available at all, even though it is reported as being available. In this case you would not be able to print to the paper size that is reported as available (A5) because it is not actually available, but you will be able to print to the paper that is not reported as available (A4). The "papers available" details (both those that you see in the printer's Properties window and those that are returned by the code I posted) can only be taken as a guide. That's just the way things are. In order for the Properties window (or the code I posted) to show the correct 'paper available' details then the person who installed the printer, or the person who last changed the papers it provides, needs to set up the 'paper to tray' assignment properly.

When anyone installs a printer, whether it be multi tray or single tray, and when they decide what paper they are normally going to place in the tray (or trays) then they should ensure that they mark those specific paper sizes as being available, just in case the driver installation's defaults are not what they actually using. This is not very important in a single user situation (a home user for example) but it is a wise thing to do when installing a shared printer. You can make the assignments by right clicking the printer in the Control Panel Printers applet and selecting Properties and then clicking the Device Settings tab, where you'll see an entry for each of the trays that the printer contains (and probably an entry for any 'optional extra' tray that the printer does not actually contain). If you click the current entry against each tray you will see a drop down list containing an item for each paper that the printer supports plus an additional item called 'not available'. Select the paper size that is actually fitted into the specific tray (or select 'not available' if the tray is not actually fitted or if you never normally place a stack of paper in it). Once you have done this for each of the trays then the 'Papers Available' item on the General tab will correctly reflect all available papers (these details are for Vista, but as I recall they are very similar for XP). Personally I don't use network printers myself (and I think you said that you are using such a printer) but I imagine that with such a network printer this tray to paper assignment will need to be done at the server end and the option to assign papers to trays may not be available at your end (although I'm not sure on that point having never used network printers). Anyway, once the assignment has been correctly made you should see the correct papers, including the 11x17, in the Properties window and the code I posted yesterday should also return it.

Mike



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