From Leo's mailbag:
> From: A Computer User
> Sent: November 5, 2007
> To: Ask Leo!
> Subject: Printing in IE and Outlook
>
> Leo,
>
> 1. Outlook and Internet Explorer page setups.
>
> Apparently, certain page setup attributes (when printing a document)
> are common between these two applications. Specifically, I am having
> issues with page margins. Outlook cannot seem to always remember that
> I like enough left margin (about .625 inches) so I can punch holes (for
> storing in a notebook) in the page without punching over printed text.
> I set the margins, which last for a while, only for them to eventually
> get changed. So far I am thinking it has something to do whenever I
> change the page setup when I need to print pages using Internet
> Explorer (version 6).
>
> Are you aware of the sharing of page setup attributes betweent Outlook
> and IE? If this is an issue, do you have any suggestions on how to
> keep their settings independent of each other.
I don't have a good answer for this one. Printing, particularly in
Outlook and IE, is notoriously frustrating.
One approach MIGHT be to go to your printer properties and see if it will
let you define a new paper type or size that will let you achieve the same
result. This gets dicey because it really depends on the printer driver and just
how much flexibility they give you. Might not be possible.
If I had to do this on a regular basis myself, I'd be tempted to print
to a PDF, and then try printing the PDF at a slightly reduced scale.
(Or perhaps the PDF display program would be smarter and IE or Outlook
and actually remember the margin settings you prefer.)
> 2. When using Internet Explorer (version 6) and when periodically
> needing to print pages from web applications, I need to print one
> site's info in portrait mode (with certain margins) while another web
> application needs to be printed in landscape mode (again, with certain
> margins). Do you have a suggestion on how to create macro-like
> functions that will let me specify that a page be printed in portrait
> mode (with certain margins) or landscape mode (again with certain
> margins) depending on how the macro is invoked? I have done this in
> Microsoft Excel using VBA, but do not know how to approach the problem
> in Internet Explorer.
No, I don't. Again, as I said, IE's printing is sadly lacking, and it's
certainly not scriptable like Excel.
At best you might be able to use a Windows keyboard macro program to
define a keystroke sequence that might achieve the desired result, but
it feels like that would be fairly fragile. Though, in all honesty, I've
not tried it. Here are google search results for Windows keyboard macro
utilities: http://ask-leo.com/news/search/windows+keyboard+macros
Firefox also comes to mine, since it's programmable via it's extensibility
and addin model, but that's a lot more involved than simple scripting, as
I understand it.
Sorry I don't have better answers for you :-).
--
Thanks for asking,
Leo Notenboom
Article 1679
| Category:
Internet
