Page Setup Default after Mail Merging

Question

I open a document then mail merge that document to get a new document, every once and a while I go to print the new mail merged document and it won't print because the paper source is selected to the manual tray. I have tried to make auto select a permanent setting across all my documents, but cannot.  Also, I have tried the "set as default" multiple times. It claims this will affect all new documents based on the NORMAL template, how would I make all my existing word files a NORMAL template? If anyone could please help it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The "set as default" button in any dialog may fail to save changes to the Normal template for several reasons, including interference from an add-in or an incorrect permissions setting on the Normal.dotm file. When that happens, you can open the Normal template itself "as a document", make the changes there, and save it.

To open the Normal.dotm template in the easiest way:

• Press Alt+F11 to open the macro editor.
• Press Ctrl+G (or click View > Immediate Window) to open the Immediate panel at the bottom right of the editor.
• Type or copy/paste the following line into the Immediate panel and press Enter:

NormalTemplate.OpenAsDocument

• Close the macro editor.

In your case, set the desired print tray in the Page Setup dialog and click OK (don't bother with the Set As Default button). In the body of the template, insert a space and backspace to remove it, to "dirty" the template so Word will know there's something to save. Then save and close the template.

Answer 2

Make sure to change the print setting in the mail merge main document. If this is a letter merge, each letter is a separate section, so you would need to change the print tray setting in every single section/letter, but if you set it in the main document before merging, the setting will be replicated in the merged document.

Note that changing the defaults affects only new document based on the Normal template, so even if your mail merge main document was based on Normal, the change in defaults would not affect it.