Enable IE to print a web page in landscape orientation by default

13,086

Solution 1

Default printing preferences are controlled by the printer driver, not the application. Application can preset its own but IE just doesn't. So there's no universal solution. It might exist for a specific printer though.

Solution 2

It's a fairly drastic solution but if you are desperate...

You could install IE7pro for everyone.

One of the features is that it will run "Userscripts". You would then need to create a userscript that overrode the print CSS for the page(s) in question.

To force landscape printing in CSS for IE, here are a couple of pointers:

As an alternative, it is possible to override the CSS of a page using a bookmarklet. Bookmarklets are JavaScript code stored in a bookmark and this can be used to apply specific CSS overrides as you could do with UserScripts.

13,086

ahmd1

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

ahmd1 almost 2 years

In our office we need to print credit card reports before the closing of the day. All reports come from IE 9 on our Windows 7 machine, but this dumb web site that generates them (Authorize.net) doesn't have an option to render a page "for print", so when we print them the right side of the page gets cut off -- right where the amounts are :)

There's a workaround to go into the print settings in IE and change it to landscape, but the setting is reset to portrait the next time we open IE.

So my question is, how to make IE print that page in landscape by default? (Most of our office personnel aren't very computer savvy to bring up a print settings dialog before printing. Plus it will really save time even for people who know how to change it.)

EDIT: I'm talking about these settings:

I also found this page that allows to change margins, etc. but not the orientation :(
ahmd1 over 11 years

Thanks. I have IE 9, would it work with IE7Pro? I also need it to work with the Group Policy configuration.
Julian Knight over 11 years

Sorry, forgot to include the link. AFAIK, it does work on IE9, I've certainly used it on IE8. Just going to try it on IE10 ;)
Julian Knight over 11 years

Hmm, it does seem to work fine. Unfortunately, they also seem to be trying a little too hard to monitize it. Takes a bit more tweaking to get rid of the less useful bits now than it used to but otherwise still seems OK.
ahmd1 over 11 years

Yeah, I checked it and I don't think I want to use it. The download link points to a downloader executable that screams "malware" or at least "ton of crapware" for me. So sorry, there's no way I'm installing it...
ahmd1 over 11 years

I hate IE with all my guts. Unfortunately that seems to be a default these days in an office (Active Directory) environment.
Julian Knight over 11 years

I get that. That is my main exposure, mainly SharePoint use. You could also try iMacros though it may be costly for business use.
Karan over 11 years

@ahmd1: My printers seem to behave just as Alex states. If I go to Start Menu / Devices and Printers, right-click the printers, go to Printing preferences and set the Layout to Portrait or Landscape, every app obeys that default setting unless overridden while printing. (Additionally, if you have control over the HTML generated, this may help.)