Tech: No so much a problem........

Subject: Tech: Not so much a problem........
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 05:42 AM

.............. but quite a big irritation.

As a work with a number of clients, Windows works out which wireless connection with no problem whatsoever.

But.....

Can it work out what printer to connect to. Unless I remember to changes printer every time I go into an office, I find that things I send to the printer don't get printed, until I realise that I forget to change the printer settings, and the next day I go back to the original client it starts churning out pages of stuff from other clients.... Very annoying. Surely it can't be beyond Microsoft's technical capability to detect whether or not the printer set in the print options is available, and if not, search for an installed printer that is. Or is that to easy, and too useful?

Subject: RE: Tech: No so much a problem........
From: GUEST,craig
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 08:28 AM

something like https://www.pcworld.com/article/2893639/how-to-automatically-switch-default-printers-based-on-your-location.html

Subject: RE: Tech: No so much a problem........
From: GUEST,lou Judson
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 08:01 PM

Gee, is it too much trouble to select the printer each time? Seems simple enough. But then, I only use Macs....

Subject: RE: Tech: No so much a problem........
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 14 Nov 17 - 11:05 PM

It is when confidential information churns out on the wrong client's printers.

Subject: RE: Tech: No so much a problem........
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 01:50 PM

look at the print spooler app and "see what's printing".

Control panel, printers. Have shortcuts on the desk top.

That's how would do it - or write a macro in - say - Excel to at least show the spooler before you open/close the spreadsheet. I bet if I had to do it I would find a way to get the macro to delete pending prints.
Or maybe even change settings by presenting a dialog with choices.

I do it for ticket printing for events we run, and flyers I produce for Stroud Voices -a simpler task.

Subject: RE: Tech: No so much a problem........
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Nov 17 - 05:50 AM

Win 7 -
1) click the windows icon (bottom left)
2) Devices & Printers
3) double click a printer
3) Printer management
4) right click on "see whats printing" and "make shortcut" (on desktop".

This creates a spooler for each printer you have added (but beware), so my approach would be to have a folders with each client's name (shortcut to, on desktop) and put the spooler shortcut in the folder, along with any client relative documents like databases, spreadsheets etc etc. If two or more clients are using the same model of printer you need a habit of cancelling any pending print documents. Remembering is the hard part.
Excel (assume Word etc) seems to remember the printer last used. best of luck.

As I don't have a need specifically - I have not investigated how a macro would do this, but on paper (ha!) I see no barrier.
The two VBA instructions that matter would be "Shell()" to open the appropriate spooler and "Sendkeys" to simulate key presses.