Locking Printo options and Printer to .xar image

[Phil Wood]

I use Xara Xtreme Pro, and have a variety of printers. It is tedious to have to change printer settings that default to the latest printed document.

Is there any way (have I missed something?) to lock the printer settings to the file, so that when ever I load that file, it has it's own default printer, and when I change windows to another image, it has it's own unique printer and settings?

[Nostaw]

That would be indeed a very great help to have all printer options saved into the .xar file.
But as far I understand, saving printer options in Xara is impossible, since all printer options are stored within the driver installed on your machine, where Xara has no access to. I'm not 100% sure.

What happens if the document is opened on a machine where this printer does not exist? Should it come up with the default printer options installed on your machine? And If you save the document again, the original printer settings are deleted, or should they be still stored? There could be various printer profiles saved within a xara document, but again I'm not sure if that's possible.

[Phil Wood]

I see the limitations. It seems to be a computer / MS XP based issue, eg even opening two copies of Xara does not seem to help either. Any idea if Vista sorts this problem out? How about Mac or Linux? A lot of users must have more than one printer and to have the settings hyjacked everytime one changes the printer is a real irritation.

[Soquili]

Phil changing printers works the same on all computers (operating systems). The information for printer settings is within the driver not the document being printed.

I'm not sure how you have your printers setup. Most printers are configured to use HPL or EPS and some will accept both without problems.

On the network I maintain I can select any of several hundred printers and the document prints without having to reset anything (well unless I want a colour print instead of black and white, I do have to tell the printer one or the other). The printers are from various manufacturers (HP, Sharp, Brother, Kyocera, Canon, and Dell). There are a mixture of inkjet and laser printers. The documents being printed are from various locations around the country so the document I print may follow one printed by a person in Los Angeles and preceed one printed by someone in Atlanta. I can print multiple copies on a high volume printer locally and print a copy in Martinsville, Atlanta, Chattanooga, etc. for the technicians that support those locations.

Could you provide more details about what is happening and what settings you are having to change?

A computer user has a default printer that if they simply click the print icon on a toolbar that is where the document will print. Using the File > Print menu allows selecting a printer other than your default.

[Phil Wood]

I have access to 3 printers, B&W laser, (Brother) colour laser (HP) and Colour InkJet (Epson). All are on local network and can be printed to off site (IP based). Everything works as expected on routine printing. I use Corel Word Perfect etc and can have 3 docs open each printing to different printers while all are open. The chosen printer sticks with the file, and is saved for when you next open the doc. If that printer no longer is available it reformats to suit the default printer, after asking permission. It's so well behaved, and I've got spoiled over the years.

But in Xara, if one chooses to open say 2 files (separate windows within Xara), changing the printer and settings for one file automatically changes the printer (and settings) to the second file. So one cannot switch quickly to another file and expect it to print on the same printer as it did last time, it depends on what was the most recently chosen printer. Makes you keep on your toes, and not just to hit the print button! I do this as I often mock up stuff on the B&W on A5 as its a lot cheaper.

So to say that it is a factor of the printer drive is clearly not the full story. There must be something more.

[Soquili]

Ok, now we have the complete picture of what you are talking about.

Word processing documents do embed the print settings, whether Word Perfect or Microsoft Word, or even old Word Star from CP/M days.

Xara files do not appear to do that, at least the 4 versions I have experience with do not. They use the most recently selected printer, as you have noticed.

No work around that I am aware of. It would be a good feature to have.

I don't recall anyone asking for that feature before.

Some of the Xara Group people visit the forum and will no doubt make note of this and add it to the official wish list of new features.