Changing default printing shortcuts

[PRW]

Same problem with me. C4580.

Tried all ways to change defaults to A4. Obviously, HP think all our shops are packed to the rafters with "Letter" sized paper.

I've just emailed HP, so lets see how long it take to get an answer...

[FrankThompson]

Might be worth taking this to the other discussion here:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/board/message?board.id=Printing&message.id=8611#M8611

HP are quite good at getting back with replies to emails... it's just that their suggestions never work!

There's two issues here: One is that the driver makes no distinction on preferences (other than language) based on the user's location; as far as HP are concerned, everyone uses "Letter" paper, etc.  The other issue is that ther is no way to update the defaults supplied by HP (you shouldn't have to set up your own shortcuts; or even if you do, you should be able to delete or "hide" the inappropriate ones suppled by HP).

[terrib]

I use  C7280  and there were other models discussed  that had the problem of printing shortcuts/color options not staying the way we modified them.

I posted  Oct 2  that I solved that problem  by downloading the basic driver that HP suggested to make the printer ' function properly'. All was well with the shortcut and color option staying  set until today. The shortcut I highlight stays set BUT I cannot get the color option  to stay on 'print in grayscale' with either of its drop down sub-options of  'high quality' or 'black cartridge only'. I have changed it in HP solutions  printing settings and  in control panel but it always goes back to  'color

 printing in color option. I use Fast Economical for basic text print jobs and sometimes General Everyday Printing.

I downloaded the basic drivers again but it said I had more recent drivers already installed so I am STUCK again on this issue. I also turned the printer off/on but nothing helped.

Any ideas would be appreciated before I have to go round and round with their technical support.

terrib

[grumpyoneuk]

I have recently bought a C4780 and have the same issue with paper size defaults.  I agree that at the very least HP should  provide a regional default A4 paper option (after all their proprietary paper here in the UK is sold in A4 packs!  Probably the same in the rest of Europe as well - BIG Market!!)  I would prefer to either overwrite the provided options with updated settings, or promote my own modified versions of the settings to become the defaults (I include the photo settings in this as well as I suspect the default settings are cropping my printed versions of my stored photo's).

I'm using Windows  7 64bitHome Professional in the UK.

Come on, HP, sort this out, it MUST be embarrassing...

[TorQueMoD · Accepted solution]

I ran into the same problem with my HP F4280 All in One and figured out what the problem was.  I'm using Windows 7 so the following steps work for that OS though its probably similar for Vista users.

Click on the Pearl Icon (Start) and choose Devices and Printers

Double click on your printer's icon to open the HP Center

Under Printer Actions click on the Customize your Printer link

Click on the Advanced Tab

Click on the Printing Defaults button (lower left corner)

If you haven't done so already, create a custom Shortcut by modifying one of HP's defaults and then choose Save As

Choose your Shortcut in the list and then press the Apply button

Press the OK button and you will return to the HP Center

Close the HP Center (X in top right corner)

Now this is where I ran into problems... If the program you're printing from is currently open (Photoshop in my case) the default print settings will NOT change until you restart the program. Restart your program (Web browser, Photoshop, Paint etc.) and now your printing defaults should be updated to use your custom shortcut as the default.

Hopefully this will help some of you who have been having problems.

[FrankThompson]

Thanks, TorQueMoD, but the problem is not how to select a shortcut; rather it is that you shouldn't have to save your references as a NEW shortcut (apart from the fact that it shouldn't install with "Letter" size paper AT ALL in the UK, or anywhere else other than th USA).  We don't want ANY sortcuts listed with WRONG settings: I don't want my kids picking "General Everyday Printing" for one of their school projects and wasting 20 sheets of paper and half a cartrige of ink becaue it tried to print on the WRONG size paper.

We have it on good authority that HP are putting all their efforts into rushing out a newer version of the printer drivers which will allow users to change the supplied printing shortcuts...

... and that was over a year ago!

[FrankThompson]

Just noticed that HP have an update to the driver software!

Tried downloading and installing it...

... nope, doesn't fix it!

[BrianA]

This is getting ridiculous..   I have tried everything suggested above, but, when I press Print Test page it automatically ends with me being told that the Paper is Too Small... Are HP going to do NOTHING to correct this situation?   In the UK and Europe - as pointed out time and again above - the default size (as sold by HP itself) is A4  not Letter.

[tismanasas]

Ok guys, here is a solution that seems to work for me: (a lot of threads online about the problem, but this one is the first one to come up in search) 1) Open Control Panel -> Devices & Printers, right click on the printer 2) Now the tricky part - pause for effect - choose "Printer Properties" (instead of anything else you may think as a better choice) 3) In the first tab that comes up, i.e. "General tab" there's a button on the bottom of the page, "Preferences...". Press it... 4) The printing preferences dialog comes up, where you can make any changes there. In my pc, I was able to change only one shortcut, but is the one I use as default... Feel free to experiment!

[FrankThompson]

tismanasas,

Thanks for trying to help, but if you had read the rest of the thread you would see that the problem is not changing properties but SAVING them.

HP's programmers in the USA, being unaware that there is an English-speaking world outside of the USA, have hard-coded the printer driver software to make use, for example, "Letter" as the setting for the "General Everyday Printing".  There is no way to save changes to the HP-supplied shortcuts.  Try it yourself: make a change to a setting in "General Everyday Printing", then select another shortcut (say, "Fast/Economical Printing") and then select "General Everyday Printing" again.  The paper size will say "Letter".  THAT'S our gripe.

Yes, we can set up our own shortcuts (I have a shortcut called "Default" which has setting more meaningful to theUK market); but the "General Everyday Printing" shortcut is still there, and still has "Letter" as the paper size, which means waster paper and ink if someone picks it 9or any other of the HP-supplied shortcuts) by mistake.

HP said they would fix the printer driver software... that was back in 2009 and no fix has been forthcoming.