Windows Clients default to Letter Size Paper

[Kurt Pfeifle]

> > I recently upgraded our cups server hardware and also installed
> > cups 1.2.4 .  All the printers have been setup and configured to
> > print to A4 paper.  Everthing is working fine, except that when
> > users logon to our windows clients, the printers get shared (via
> > samba) and the page size defaults to Letter.  The client Language
> > and Regional settings are all showing correctly as UK.  The clients
> > need to default to A4 page size, does anyone know what I'm missing....
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Artie
> >
> >
> This is an irritating Microsoft problem.

I'm not so sure. I know it used to work in previous times. It could also be a regression (current version of Samba? cupsaddsmb?)

I myself recently was quite puzzled to see this happen, even though I know I had set up everything correctly.

> MS default seems to be letter paper - it can be changed to A4
> somewhere in the MS Office menus.

Wrong place.

The only workaround right now is this: connect to the printer from the Windows client as a user with *administrative* privileges (*before* any "normal" user connects!). On the "Advanced" tab, click "Printing Defaults" and set the paper size to A4.

> It can also be changed on a per-document basis - which confuses
> some users.

If you do what I advised above, each user and each application will initially see the "A4" size. (This default then can still be changed on a per-user basis).

> To reduce the load on MS support (I presume) there is a tick box
> in Word that 'allows shrink/stretch to fit letter to paper and
> vice-versa, normally ticked.  It messes up margin measurements.

Yes, that is there -- but it is something completely different from the problem described here.