Printing being shrunk! Help!

[docboggle]

Bit of a long post, so sorry for it all. Just trying to get all the information in...

We have a rather unusual problem that has started this week. Some prints that are being sent to our network A4 printer are being shrunk to A5 and be stuck in the bottom corner of the page.

It is a CC3 network (although prints are from teacher laptops that are not connected via CC3). The printer is a HP Color LaserJet 2550 Ln.

As far as I can see, when the users print out in Word, if the Page Setup is set to Letter instead of A4, it decides to shrink it to A5 to "fit it on the page"!
As you can image, asking everyone to check to see if every document they go into is set to A4 is causing a bit of upset! (Although I have got them to change default to A4 for all new documents).
This has not been a problem before, and documents that used to print fine are being shrunk.

I have checked server printer settings (all set to A4).
I have tried removing the printer and re-installing onto server.

The only recent change to the server was a HP ColorJet 970CXi being added recently through a Netgear PS101v2 parallel print server. I have subsequently removed this printer from the server printers, but am still having problems.

Anyone got any ideas? Please?
(Commencing begging!)

[Michael]

On the server right click the printer, choose Properties > Printing Preferences

Check paper sizes within here. Usually (depending on the printer driver) you can restore all settings to default which may also help.

[docboggle]

On the server right click the printer, choose Properties > Printing Preferences

Check paper sizes within here. Usually (depending on the printer driver) you can restore all settings to default which may also help.

That is one of the first things I tried. Including restoring to default.
I have tried it again, but still shrinking pages.

[Michael]

I wonder if incorrect printer settings are being remembered in user profiles?

[bossman]

@docboggle:
Your end users profile has become corrupted, to remedy ask the user to log on to the workstation then log off, delete the profile from the workstation and then in the MMC reset the users profile and then ask them to log in, you should find this has corrected the problem ok.

[docboggle]

@bossman:
This is not a problem on a CC3 computer. This is a problem on non-CC3 teacher laptops that just print via the network. Therefore, deleting profiles is not an option on this occasion.

[elsiegee40]

In a vanialla windows 2003 environment
- delete the profile from the machine,
- rename the profile on the server,
- get the user to login and then logout again to create a new profile

If you want restore the user's favorites folder
- delete all trace from the machine again
- on the server,copy Favorites from the renamed profile into the new profile

EDIT just reread your post... I am assuming they do have to log on to the network somehow to print.

[docboggle]

The way the laptops work is that they are totally independant of the server. Standard Windows XP Pro laptops that do not actually "log-on" to the server, but use the printer effectively as a network share.
Consequently, there are not matching profiles on the laptop and server.

Not the ideal set-up, but it was set-up like this when I joined the school!

[Michael]

The way the laptops work is that they are totally independant of the server. Standard Windows XP Pro laptops that do not actually "log-on" to the server, but use the printer effectively as a network share.
Consequently, there are not matching profiles on the laptop and server.

Try logging on locally as administrator or creating a new local account, then try printing. A new local user will of course have a completely new profile, so it will be interesting to see if this works or not

[docboggle]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions.
It looks like something worked as it is no longer shrinking the prints.