How do you know when printing has finished?

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Henry - 03 Feb 2006 20:05 GMT

Word 2K running under WinXP.

I've got a command button on my Doc. with the code behind it as:

Me.Printout

Me.SaveAs ("filename") etc.

Application.Quit

The problem is that I'm printing to a network printer and the network can be
very slow at times.
It's only one page long, but I often get a messagebox popping up saying that
the printing hasn't finished and closing down word will cancel the print
job.
I've tried putting DoEvents at various places in the code and tried to use
Application.Wait (a valid Excel VBA command, but not valid in Word VBA) to
force a pause, all to no avail.

Any of you Word VBA gurus got an answer to this one?

TIA

Henry

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Jay Freedman - 03 Feb 2006 20:16 GMT

> Word 2K running under WinXP.
>
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> Henry

Change the .Printout line to

Me.PrintOut Background:=False

When you omit the optional Background parameter, its default value of True
means that Word should create a "background process" to send the document to
the print spooler, and immediately return control to the macro. By making it
False, you're saying to use the "foreground process"; that makes the macro
wait until the spooling is completed before executing the next line of the
macro.

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Helmut Weber - 03 Feb 2006 20:21 GMT

Hi Henry,

see help for: "application.backgroundprintingstatus", hopefully.

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Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
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Henry - 03 Feb 2006 23:47 GMT

Thanks Jay & Helmut

I'll try that on Monday, when I get to work.

Henry

> Hi Henry,
>
> see help for: "application.backgroundprintingstatus", hopefully.

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Alex Ivanov - 05 Feb 2006 06:59 GMT

Keep in mind that checking Backgroundprintingstatus in some (rare) cases
causes infinite loop.
It never changes to 0, and may produce no printouts until you press
ctrl-break.
Neither doevents nor Sleep inside the loop helps, if this happens.

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Alex.

> Thanks Jay & Helmut
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>>
>> see help for: "application.backgroundprintingstatus", hopefully.

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Jonathan West - 06 Feb 2006 11:01 GMT

> Thanks Jay & Helmut
>
> I'll try that on Monday, when I get to work.

You should take a look at this article

How to find out whether Word has finished printing
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/WaitForPrint.htm

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Henry - 10 Feb 2006 00:33 GMT

>> Thanks Jay & Helmut
>>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> How to find out whether Word has finished printing
> http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/WaitForPrint.htm

Thanks all,

Jay's solution works just fine, thank you Jay.

I'll bear in mind Alex's warning, but it doesn't seem to be a problem ATM.

I went to your link, Jonathan, but it seems to say that 'Background:=False'
is the preferred way to do it.

Once again, thanks all.

Henry

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