HP Photosmart Printer Issue with Excel 2010

There is a known issue with older models of the photo printer and printing from excel but this has a work around that “might” work for some clients:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Install-Setup/Installed-Office-2010-Cant-print-from-Excel/td-p/324886

  1. Click on the Start menu.
  2. Select “Printers & Faxes”
  3. Select “Add A Printer” from Printer tasks.
  4. This should open the “Add Printers Wizard” Select “Next” to continue.
  5. The next screen asks if you want to add a local or network printer. Click the radio button for “Local Printer”. Uncheck “Automatically Detect Plug & Play” , then click “Next”.
  6. The next screen asks to select a port. Select the port assigned to your PhotoSmart printer.
  7. The next screen asks to select the make and model of printer. Select “HP” as the make, then select HP DeskJet 660C as the model (Or HP DeskJet 990C). Click “Next”.
  8. Assign the printer a name, such as “Printer For Excel” or whatever name you prefer. Check “No” in response to “Do You Want To Use This Printer As Default Printer?”
  9. On the Printer Sharing screen, check “Do Not Share This Printer”.
  10. Click “No” in response to “Do You Want To Print A Test Page?”
  11. Click “Finish”.
  12. XP should install the drivers, and an icon for the new printer should appear in your selection of printers
  13. Right click on the icon for the printer you just created
    a. Click File. Then click Properties
    b. Select the Ports tab
    c. Make sure the checkbox for the port is the one that has the PhotoSmart next to it.
    d. Click Close
  14. Now try to print from Excel 2010. Make sure you select the printer you named in step 8 above.

As an alternative: Office 2010 makes it easy to print to a PDF. So, instead of printing directly to your PhotoSmart, first print to a PDF within Excel, then print the PDF to your PhotoSmart using Adobe Reader. You may need to select an different make or model of printer before making any document changes. The typical installation of Office 2010 has at least one other printer driver installed, such as “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”.

When you are ready to print:

  • Select File Tab
  • Select Save & Send
  • Select Create XPS/PDF Document
  • A file dialog box appears:
  • Select the location where you want the PDF to be created
  • Enter a file name for the PDF
  • Make sure “Save As Type” is set to PDF.
  • Select “Publish”
  • Open Adobe Reader, or go to the file specified in “d’ above.
  • Open the file in Adobe Reader, then print to your PhotoSmart