Hi,
Was advise by "Community" to post this one here.
The environment:
Window 7 Sp1 x64
Office 2013 Sp1 32 bit
Windows 2012 Server (current patches).
Two IDENTICAL network connected printers shared from above Windows 2012 server.
As the two printers are the same, they both use the same printer driver.
Printer A is set to Greyscale. This is the default printer.
Printer B is set to Full Colour.
Open Excel and start a blank worksheet.
Choose Print - this shows the default printer (Printer A) - then Printer Properties - this verifies that the Default Printer is set to Greyscale as expected.
Change printer within Excel to Printer B - then printer properties again - this shows us that printing is STILL in Greyscale ignoring the Printer B settings. Printing will indeed produce a greyscale print on Printer B.
The reverse is also true - if we set Printer B (Color) as the Default, then choose Printer A (Greyscale) inside Excel, it will then show (and print) in Full Color - ignoring the printer A setting of greyscale.
This ONLY occurs when connecting to Shared Printers on a Windows host (Server 2012 in this case).
Direct IP printing from Win 7 to the printer works as expected (printer settings honoured).
Non-Windows server based printer sharing works as expected (printer settings honoured).
This ONLY occurs in Excel. Other programs including other Office components do not exhibit this bizarre behaviour.
This ONLY occurs where the same driver is used by both printers.
In effect, Excel is transposing the Default printer's settings onto whatever printer is chosen if it uses the same driver.
Installing Office 2013 Service Pack 1 made no difference.
This appears to be a long running issue (search result show Excel 2007,2010* and Windows 2008R2 server references).
*Confirmed same behaviour with Windows XP and Excel 2010.
This appears to affect multiple brands of printer (Xerox, Konica Minolta). Confirmed with 3 different generation Konica Minolta (Postscript) copiers and Dell multifunction (with PCL drivers).
Does anyone have a solution for this ?
Is there a setting hidden in Excel that should be changed ?
Is there a server setting to "isolate" the two printers from each other ?
Regards
Ian