How to Set Printer Properties with a Macro
Use an OpenOffice Macro to Change Printer Options
Nov 29, 2008
Every year there are thousands of sheets of paper wasted because of reports being printed:
- on A3 paper instead of A4
- portrait instead of landscape
- from the printer tray with company stationary instead of plain paper
- no header
- no footer
- without a page number or page count
Fortunately all of that paper can be saved just by using OpenOffice.org Calc and a single macro - a macro that can:
- set the page size
- set the page orientation
- set the printer tray
- add a header
- add a footer
- add the page numbers and a page count
Setting the Page Size
The page size can be set very easily by:
- obtaining the page style
- setting the page width (in millimeters)
- setting the page height (in millimeters)
Setting the Page Orientation
The page orientation is handled a little differently to the page size - for that an OpenOffice property value for the printer must be set:
Choosing the paper tray
Changing the paper tray is very simple:
It's worth noting that an error will occur at this point if the wrong printer tray name is entered.
Adding a Header
Adding the header is the most complicated part of the process seen so far, but is by no means difficult - the macro must:
- access the page header content
- update the left, center or right panels
- refresh the page header
Adding a Footer
The footer is handled in exactly the way as the header:
Adding a Page Number and Page Count
The page numbering and page count functionality is, of course, built into OpenOffice - the only difficult thing is knowing how to access it and, most importantly, how to update the header or the footer with the information:
Summary
Formatting printer outputs by using a macro in OpenOffice Calc is only difficult because a few different techniques have to be used:
- the page style is used to change the:
- page width
- page height
- paper tray
- a printer property must change for the paper orientation
- text cursors are needed to add page numbers and page counts
However, combining them into a single macro means that a document can always be printed correctly - with no waste of paper.
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