Quick Excel query

mossie

Hi.

I have an excel workbook with 6 sheets Monday - Saturday. When I print the workbook it prints in the following order Weds - Sat, Tues, Mon. It's set to print collated 1, 2, 3 etc. What can I do to ensure it prints in the right order?

smuggler.ie

Not sure why it happens to you, works fine for me (E2016).

Try:

1. make sure workbook saved before printing, then print workbook , or

2. "select all sheets" and then "print active sheets" instead workbook

mossie

Print active sheets still prints in the same order. It's not a big issue but would be helpful if it printed in the correct order.

The Continental Op

When you go to print is there a printer setting - Settings - Print Entire Workbook ?

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119467706#Comment_119467706

Yes that's there still prints in the same order

Jayd0g

Based on how excel designates worksheets in VBA, I wouldn't be surprised if the Tues and Mon sheets were created after the others.

Despite these sheets / tabs being renamed, excel will still consider them to be Sheet5 and Sheet6.

It sounds like excel is then printing them in order as sheets 1-6.

I've had a quick search for references on this, but nothing useful is coming up for an elegant solution.

A quick and dirty fix may be to copy the sheets to a new workbook in the order required.

So move the Monday sheet across first, then Tuesday and so on. Worth a try and let us know how you get on!

Jayd0g

Closest match to the problem that I could find

https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/print-order-of-sheets-tabs.632926/

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119467827#Comment_119467827

Worth a go. Probably Monday now before I can try.

Jayd0g

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119467973#Comment_119467973

Fingers crossed for you!

smuggler.ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119467827#Comment_119467827

had that in mind, cannot replicate...

Tested, new sheets created, moved to different order, shuffled around - print still in order the sheets aligned in workbook

The Continental Op

I wonder if we need to know what version of excel it is?

Jayd0g

I also wonder if it's a printer connected to their machine, or a server printer similar to what's described in the link I shared.

Local printer may print sheets in order they're arranged in workbook, printer server may use the sheet names to sequence the print job.

mossie

I think it may be printer related. I printed on my home printer last night and it printed in order. At work it goes to a printer server and I noticed it sends it as 3 separate items, not as one print job so it looks like that's the issue.

The Continental Op

I wonder if you could print to pdf then print the pdf?

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119470861#Comment_119470861

When I print to PDF and then print the pdf the sheets are in the correct order. The issue seems to be with how the job is sent to the print server from excel.

stillatit

A quick test on my Excel 365 shows sheets are printed in the TAB order that they are arranged by. So arrange the tabs in the order you want to print them.

The Continental Op

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119474787#Comment_119474787

What printer is it? One thing that I'd always try on with an hp laser jet print que that was causing problem was to send print jobs to it using the old HP 4 laser jet driver.

Just checked and you can still manually add the HP 4 laser jet driver in Windows 10.

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119477225#Comment_119477225

They are in the order I want, but don't print in that order.

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119477262#Comment_119477262

It's a Xerox network printer. Don't know the model number off hand.

The Continental Op

No experience with Xerox but by the look of it there are two universal drivers that might help. The first is the PCL6 driver and I have a personal hate for them as they have caused me problems in the past then there is the Postscript driver.

Assuming you have the permission to add printer drivers I'd give both of these a try and see if one works over the other

https://www.support.xerox.com/en-us/product/global-printer-driver/downloads?platform=win10x64&language=en

mossie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119478325#Comment_119478325

I won't be able to add drivers as that's done from HO. I can pass it up the line and see if anything can be done though. Thanks.