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When I print landscape slides in a book format (open top) Powerpoint defaults to flip on the long edge. However, the way it prints is flipping on the short edge. I can change this setting to get the opposite. However, if I save the file, close Powerpoint and reopen it, it always defaults back to the wrong flip. This is a major frustration resulting in scrap printing or worse, embarrassment if I don't catch it. My Ricoh printer defaults to Portrait with Duplex to Open to Left which is fine for everything except Powerpoint. Is there a way to fix this?
A family of Microsoft presentation graphics products that offer tools for creating presentations and adding graphic effects like multimedia objects and special effects with text.
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I don't know any way to change the default setting in PowerPoint. You cannot even get at the short edge filp in code.
It might be possible to use an API to temporarily change the the PRINTER setting but it won't be easy.
Printer settings are normally part of the driver, but I recently had a student ask about this in our computer labs. For Word and Excel documents default to Duplex long edge and Portrait, just like the preferences we have set for the network printers on our print server. Powerpoint overrides these settings and picks Landscape and Duplex short edge. So far as I can see this an issue with Powerpoint itself not printer preferences or defaults.
Microsoft could solve this whole thing if I could save the "Flip On Side" setting as a preference. I always print the same way in PowerPoint. Every time I close and reopen PowerPoint I have to remember to change the "Flip On Side" setting from long side to short side in order to get it to flip on the long side.
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John's correct.
Printer settings like this are part of the printer driver, not PowerPoint itself.
As a rule, anything you have to set by using the Properties button in the print dialog is a printer driver feature, not a PowerPoint feature.
If you ALWAYS want ALL documents to print this way, you can probably do it.
Close all programs that might be running,
Go to Control Panel | Printers and Devices, rightclick your printer's icon, choose Preferences.
Choose the settings you want as defaults in all of your programs, then close the dialog box.
I figured I could change the printer defaults but then all the portrait documents would flip the wrong way. It just seems that to "flip on the long side" in Powerpoint should mean what it says an not require interpretation based on printer defaults.