All-in-one printing incompatibility with EXCEL in landscape mode

[ccorley]

I have just successfully added my new HP8500 wireless printer to my wireless
network and it seems to connect fine and print fine from some applications
except EXCEL 2007. The spreadsheet prints fine in portrait mode, but the
margins are all off and I get partial printing if I have the spreadsheet page
set-up in landscape mode. Landscape printing in MS WORD works fine. HP
support said the following "There are some critical drivers Issue with Office
2007 as some of the code are not approved by Microsoft thats why we are not
able to print correctly with the All-in-One."

 

[Dave Peterson]

Did you ask when they would have the updated drivers available? (and double the
time estimate for reality!)

Did you take the printer back to where you bought it so you could get your money
back and buy a different model?

Have you tried printing to a .pdf file and then printing that (if you want to
keep the printer)?

 

[ccorley]

HP technical support told me that a "fix" will be available on 22 Oct. We
have contacted the vendor we purchased the printer from and came to an
agreement that we will wait until the "fix" comes around and then make a
decision then. HP told me that this was a problem with a lot of other
"all-in-ones".

I have not tried printing a pdf file. And I have not decided whether or not
we would keep the printer. At this time we have another printer in our
wireless network that can print the landscape excel pages, but that one is
getting old. This new printer (HP8500 Officejet Wireless) is suppose to
replace the old one when it decides to break down.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Thanks for posting your message. Maybe it'll help someone considering the same
printer.

Can you post back on the due date with your status--still waiting (with a new
date???) or the fix worked/didn't work?

There may be a few people who google first and are following your thread.

 

[brian2009]

Did HP ever fix this. I seem to have the same problem with my HP Photosmart Premium Fax (C309A). I can't see any updates on HP's support page.

Thanks
Brian

Thanks for posting your message. Maybe it'll help someone considering the same
printer.

Can you post back on the due date with your status--still waiting (with a new
date???) or the fix worked/didn't work?

There may be a few people who google first and are following your thread.

ccorley wrote:
>
> HP technical support told me that a "fix" will be available on 22 Oct. We
> have contacted the vendor we purchased the printer from and came to an
> agreement that we will wait until the "fix" comes around and then make a
> decision then. HP told me that this was a problem with a lot of other
> "all-in-ones".
>
> I have not tried printing a pdf file. And I have not decided whether or not
> we would keep the printer. At this time we have another printer in our
> wireless network that can print the landscape excel pages, but that one is
> getting old. This new printer (HP8500 Officejet Wireless) is suppose to
> replace the old one when it decides to break down.
>
> "Dave Peterson" wrote:
>
> > Did you ask when they would have the updated drivers available? (and double the
> > time estimate for reality!)
> >
> > Did you take the printer back to where you bought it so you could get your money
> > back and buy a different model?
> >
> > Have you tried printing to a .pdf file and then printing that (if you want to
> > keep the printer)?
> >
> > ccorley wrote:
> > >
> > > I have just successfully added my new HP8500 wireless printer to my wireless
> > > network and it seems to connect fine and print fine from some applications
> > > except EXCEL 2007. The spreadsheet prints fine in portrait mode, but the
> > > margins are all off and I get partial printing if I have the spreadsheet page
> > > set-up in landscape mode. Landscape printing in MS WORD works fine. HP
> > > support said the following "There are some critical drivers Issue with Office
> > > 2007 as some of the code are not approved by Microsoft thats why we are not
> > > able to print correctly with the All-in-One."
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dave Peterson
> >

--

Dave Peterson

 

[Roland6]

Excel 2007 A4 Landscape printing still not fixed

Printing spreadsheets in A4-Landscape mode from XP/Excel 2007 is still problematic with the current (Mar/Apr 2010) HP software suite (see below for configuration and version details).

The problem seems to be that in Excel 2007 the page setup can be for A4 Landscape and (you think) the 8500 is set to A4 Portrait; at the instance of printing the 8500 is reporting to Excel a page width of LETTER Landscape. This causing the Excel page width to be re-scaled (compressed) and if you haven't set hard page breaks the length of the page to be extended by Excel. Interestingly, the A4-Landscape page length is being retained as Excel headers and footers are being printed correctly.

In summary your Excel A4L page size (in mm) of: 297 wide x 210 long is being resized and printed on a page size of 279.4 wide x 210 long.

I've confirmed the problem exists for both Excel 2003 and 2007 spreadsheets printed via Excel 2007 and suspect that the problem applies to any spreadsheet printed directly from Excel 2007, as the problem does not arise with spreadsheets printed via PDF (ExpertPDF v6).

I've also confirmed that Excel 2007 prints these spreadsheets without problem on an HP Deskjet 960c and a PSC1205 - both of which use drivers that predate HP Solution Center and MS Office 2007.

Hence I conclude the problem is with current version(s) of HP Solution Center and associated drivers.

The workaround (including checks) I have discovered for this problem seems to be to set A4 and Landscape in both Excel and in the printer driver just before you print, specifically:

1. Print: Confirm/select the printer
2. Page Layout: Set page setup ie. A4 Landscape etc.
3. View -> Page Break Preview: Set page breaks.
4. Print Preview: Confirm Excel's version of what is to be printed on each A4 page (you can also confirm via Page Setup your page settings).
5. Print -> Properties
   Printing Shortcuts: Select the shortcut you wish to use
   Features: Make sure Landscape is selected and re-select A4 as the paper size.
   Click 'OK'
6. Print: now just select the pages and sheets you want printed and click 'OK'.

I've noticed that the A4 and Landscape settings are not particularly 'sticky' and so the only reliable way to ensure that a spreadsheet is correctly printed is to reset these on every print (ie. repeat the above...).

I suspect that the root cause of this problem is that HP Solution Center
assumes a default page size of LETTER and that within the function that automatically handles the landscape/portrait transposition this has been hardcoded and hence this problem will arise for page sizes different to LETTER (I've confirmed the resizing problem defined above also occurs when I set Excel to use Legal landscape).

The problems that arise with the inability to set a default other than LETTER are well documented across the HP (and third-party) forums - along with HP's inability to understand and resolve this problem. It seems that this problem is generic to the HP Solution Center versions released in 2008 and later (I can confirm that it happens with versions 12 and 13). Since Solution Center is used across the Deskjet, Photosmart, Officejet and Scanjet ranges, I anticipate the problems being seen on the 8500 also being seen on other models within these ranges; a search of the HP Consumer and Business Forums seems to confirm this is the case. Based on what I've read in the HP Forums, my recommendation to any one who has pre-HP Solution Center software is to fully uninstall Solution Center and re-install the older drivers and disable automatic update.

This combined with several other problems (well documented on various forums) has lead me to two conclusions:

1. This device is not suitable for business use and that potentially HP are in breach of UK law in the claims they make for this product.
2. None of the various reviewers of this product actually used this product beyond printing out a few test pages to analyse print quality and speed.

APPENDICES

System Information

HP OJPro8500 Wifi (A909g) - currently connected via USB (!)
Firmware: DLM1FN0924AR (version shipped with in Jan-2010)
HP Solution Center 13.0 (displayed version: 130.0.44.62)
MS Office 2007-SP2
MS XP-Pro-SP3
Note: HP software installed using the following HP downloads:
"HP Officejet Full Feature Software and Driver" version 12.0.0
"Solution Center Update" version 13.0

​

Landscape Page Sizes (in mm) for Quick Reference

A4: 297 x 210
Letter: 279.4 x 215.9
​

 

[normandlc]

HP F4280 All-in-One printing incompatibility with EXCEL

Hi.

I have the same problem with HP 4280 All-in-One printer. I guess it has the same symptoms which were explained in this blog. I tried printing an Excel (2007) document on landscape mode on A4 paper size. The printed result was not what was print-previewed. The printed area was smaller than what the paper could accommodate. I do not know what to do but to try printing the document using my older HP D2500 series.


Norman dela Cruz