Profiles are not keeping their settings

[dupont]

All I need to do is update the paper size on several profiles. For some reason, the settings keep changing.

I right-click the printer, printing preferences and choose one of the 12 profiles I have saved as a printer.

I see the proper profile is in the profile window. I can verify that my "save" tag is pointing to the proper folder.

I update my paper size on the "paper" tab (in this case 30x42). I click Apply.

I change the profile to "default profile" and apply changes. I then select the profile I just modified seconds ago and apply it.

The paper size is now a custom size of 30x11.693?

Can you please explain this behavior and how to avoid it?

I have 12 profiles I have to manage and it is an absolute headache trying to make simple changes.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi,

Can you please advise the exact version/build you are using, Windows version specifically and also please export and supply your profiles to us to take a look at;

Please email to support@pdf-xchange.com (zipped) with a link back to this forum post for reference.

thanks

[Puffolino]

I have the V5.5 Build 312.1 and have also problems to handle profiles with Windows 8.1.

For instance, I would like to have a behaviour like "pdf factory" is doing, therefore I created a new "Standard Profile" (because it is impossible to save changes in the "Default profile") where I unchecked the "Show as..." and option and setted "Auto numbering" for existing document file names.

But when printing a new document, the "Default profile" will be chosen and not my "Standard profile".

[Patrick-Tracker Supp]

Hello Guys,

I have reproduced this issue here and created an internal development ticket to help track it's status. Please reference RT#2927 when requesting an update to the issue.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work to resolve this.

Cheers!

[Regor]

Hello,

I have the question, if there is a solution for this Problem available now?

Is it possible to use an old printer driver with Editor v.5, which does not have the problem?

Thanks

[Patrick-Tracker Supp]

Hello Regor,

There should be a build release available today or tomorrow. You should find the issue resolved for build 313.

I have done some further testing with build 312.1, and determined that it is working correctly when you choose the profile you wish to print with from within the Editor's Print dialog. You can do so by going to "Properties" within the printing section. Are you experiencing this issue when printing from other applications?

HTH!

[Puffolino]

I have build 313 installed, but the default settings still make problems here (Win 8.1):
- settings can't be changed (the pencil will be seen, but the "save changes" icon is disabled)
- each time a program (word, notepad etc.) is started and something has to be printed, the "default setting" will be used.

BTW sometimes the "pencil symbol" won't be seen (e.g. when doing some changes in the watermark settings) but then after moving around the menus for a while, it will be displayed.

[Regor]

I'm back to PDF-XChange Pro 5.0 and do not longer have these problems with the settings of the printer driver.

[Puffolino]

It's a little bit annoying, today I have to print more than 100 certificates for my students which have to be signed. I scanned my signature, made a watermark and played around quite a while to find the correct settings for the placement, the configuration dialog is not very intuitive (the page view could show a pdf, the image could be moved with the mouse), the coordinate values get changed (from 20.0 to 19.9 etc.), and there's no indication, when the watermark image file has been removed.

However, each time I double click on a certificate and press Ctrl+P, the default profile will be used, so I have to change the profile before I am able to create a new pdf file...

Another remark for the pencil icon: when opening the property dialog of the printer driver and "tab" is pressed multiple times, the icon appears as soon the cursor will be moved to the "Scaling" field.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Puffolino,

Please try changing the printer settings from Start -> Devices and Printers, and the custom profile should then stick.

As for the second issue - I am not sure I understand! Can you please send some screenshots or a short video illustrating this?

Regards,
Stefan

[Puffolino]

Please try changing the printer settings from Start -> Devices and Printers, and the custom profile should then stick.

Thanks Stefan, seems to work, anyhow it would be perfect to be able to get the same results when change the properties before printing from an application (as other printer drivers are doing so).
Another tricky thing: I have edited the printer driver name (removed the 2012 ) and all profiles where gone - they reappeared as soon the printer got the previous name. Maybe this is not a wanted behaviour because unneeded files remain somewhere on the harddisc).

As for the second issue - I am not sure I understand! Can you please send some screenshots or a short video illustrating this?

Okay!

T1.png shows the watermark dialog and some of the issues:
- some GUI elements disappear when the alt key is pressed
- it would be fine, if image field would be seen in red color, if the image file is not available
- another idea: allowing to make an image "permanent", means copying it to a "PDF-XChange printer driver library folder"
- enabling aspect ratio should grey out height
- what about adding a "%" symbol or a unit (e.g. "mm") to the width and height fields?
- the values in the offset fields may change after pressing "Ok"
- the paper frame is not changed when the paper layout is set to landscape etc.
- it would be brilliant to get a "live preview" of the first page of the PDF file which is printed

T2/T3.png:
T2 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed multiple times (cursor in the resolution field)
T3 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed one more (cursor in the scaling field), now the pencil symbol appears.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Puffolino,

Thanks for the post - I'll address each point/concern in turn:

Thanks Stefan, seems to work, anyhow it would be perfect to be able to get the same results when change the properties before printing from an application (as other printer drivers are doing so).

This is because you cannot set the default settings for the printer, when accessing the printer settings from within an application. I'm not entirely sure if this is actually possible and, even were it possible, it's not something that we would change. This is because it allows for options to be set only for that application session, which is useful if i.e. you will no likely need to use those settings again and so do not want them saved. This is done by popular request.

Another tricky thing: I have edited the printer driver name (removed the 2012 ) and all profiles where gone - they reappeared as soon the printer got the previous name. Maybe this is not a wanted behaviour because unneeded files remain somewhere on the harddisc).

This is also done by design, as it allows for multiple installations of the printer, each with their own unique settings and/or profiles.

- some GUI elements disappear when the alt key is pressed

You will notice that, when this is pressed, the first letter, of some options, is now underlined: this is to allow options to be selected with a single keystroke. However, this does not appear to be functioning entirely correctly, or at least not intuitively. I'll pass this along to the Dev. Team.

- it would be fine, if image field would be seen in red color, if the image file is not available

I don't believe that this is possible. We cannot programmatically determine if a file is/isn't available until we try to open it.

- another idea: allowing to make an image "permanent", means copying it to a "PDF-XChange printer driver library folder"

So you'd like to create a library of images for watermarking purposes? I hope I'm not being dense, but I'm not sure that I understand the value of this. Perhaps you could elaborate and provide and example of its use, so that I could better judge whether it would be possible and/or plausible?

- enabling aspect ratio should grey out height

I'd have to disagree here. This would cause problems if, i.e. you know only a)the height and b)that the aspect ratio should be kept (and vice versa). If you want to keep the aspect ratio and only edit the width, then I'd suggest just ignoring the height field completely.

- what about adding a "%" symbol or a unit (e.g. "mm") to the width and height fields?

I'm not 100% sure that I understand the request or, again the purpose of the feature. Please do provide an example here too.

- the values in the offset fields may change after pressing "Ok"

I'm not seeing this here. I noticed above that you mentioned that you're using 313, so please do try 313.1 and see if that helps:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX5SA.zip

- the paper frame is not changed when the paper layout is set to landscape etc.

I'll speak with the Dev. Team and will see if it's possible to add a live preview here.

- it would be brilliant to get a "live preview" of the first page of the PDF file which is printed

I'm afraid that it's not really possible for us to generate the preview before the print job has been created, as the application from which you're printing hasn't actually sent our printer any information yet.

T2/T3.png:
T2 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed multiple times (cursor in the resolution field)
T3 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed one more (cursor in the scaling field), now the pencil symbol appears.

I always see this pencil icon, so please do try installing 313.1.

Cheers,

[Puffolino]

Thanks Stefan, seems to work, anyhow it would be perfect to be able to get the same results when change the properties before printing from an application (as other printer drivers are doing so).

This is because you cannot set the default settings for the printer, when accessing the printer settings from within an application. I'm not entirely sure if this is actually possible and, even were it possible, it's not something that we would change. This is because it allows for options to be set only for that application session, which is useful if i.e. you will no likely need to use those settings again and so do not want them saved. This is done by popular request.

Okay, try to keep that in mind - anyhow the behaviour of PDF-XChange is quite different compared to other printer drivers.

Another tricky thing: I have edited the printer driver name (removed the 2012 ) and all profiles where gone - they reappeared as soon the printer got the previous name. Maybe this is not a wanted behaviour because unneeded files remain somewhere on the harddisc).

This is also done by design, as it allows for multiple installations of the printer, each with their own unique settings and/or profiles.

Hm, I fear, that the way this is done may leave tons of setting files on the hard disk without any feedback for the user, so maybe something like a profile manager would be fine to be able to export/import/copy/delete profile sets and also allow to assign an existent profile to a printer driver instance.

- some GUI elements disappear when the alt key is pressed

You will notice that, when this is pressed, the first letter, of some options, is now underlined: this is to allow options to be selected with a single keystroke. However, this does not appear to be functioning entirely correctly, or at least not intuitively. I'll pass this along to the Dev. Team.

Thanks, as a white box overlays most of the element in the specified tab.

- it would be fine, if image field would be seen in red color, if the image file is not available

I don't believe that this is possible. We cannot programmatically determine if a file is/isn't available until we try to open it.

There are multiple windows functions which do so, e.g. filesize

- another idea: allowing to make an image "permanent", means copying it to a "PDF-XChange printer driver library folder"

So you'd like to create a library of images for watermarking purposes? I hope I'm not being dense, but I'm not sure that I understand the value of this. Perhaps you could elaborate and provide and example of its use, so that I could better judge whether it would be possible and/or plausible?

I thought, it would be nice to have a better integration of watermarks (like the stamp function in the good old XChange Viewer) which makes it easier to handle and also a kind of "protection" that they can't be deleted by accident. Anyhow, not so important

- enabling aspect ratio should grey out height

I'd have to disagree here. This would cause problems if, i.e. you know only a)the height and b)that the aspect ratio should be kept (and vice versa). If you want to keep the aspect ratio and only edit the width, then I'd suggest just ignoring the height field completely.

Understand the idea, but not the behaviour, shouldn't the second value be updated automatically when the first is changed by the user?

- what about adding a "%" symbol or a unit (e.g. "mm") to the width and height fields?

I'm not 100% sure that I understand the request or, again the purpose of the feature. Please do provide an example here too.

Maybe I'm wrong here also, but what kind of values are given in the width/height fields? Do they mean the resulting size (in mm or inches or whatever?) or the percentage of the original image size (calculated by using the dpi value of the image file)? In MS Word for instance, you get these information when showing/editing the size of an image.

- the values in the offset fields may change after pressing "Ok"

I'm not seeing this here. I noticed above that you mentioned that you're using 313, so please do try 313.1 and see if that helps:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX5SA.zip

Thank you, will do that as soon as possible.

- the paper frame is not changed when the paper layout is set to landscape etc.

I'll speak with the Dev. Team and will see if it's possible to add a live preview here.

Great, thank you - maybe the image could be moved (or even resized) by using the mouse on this preview?

- it would be brilliant to get a "live preview" of the first page of the PDF file which is printed

I'm afraid that it's not really possible for us to generate the preview before the print job has been created, as the application from which you're printing hasn't actually sent our printer any information yet.

Oh, my fault - I thought, fineprints PDF printer driver could do this trick...

T2/T3.png:
T2 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed multiple times (cursor in the resolution field)
T3 shows the printer property dialog after the tab key has been pressed one more (cursor in the scaling field), now the pencil symbol appears.

I always see this pencil icon, so please do try installing 313.1.

Interesting (will download the new release soon), does it look similar, when starting the properties from a program or the control panel? And why the pencil is seen, even when the settings haven't changed and/or can't be saved (because the disk symbol is greyed out when the properties has been initiated from an application)? Oh, wouldn't it also be nice to have some tooltips to get clear informations, what the buttons mean. Okay, I better stop now

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Puffolino,

Thank you for the in depth post.
My colleague Patrick started answering your post but could not finish his reply. Here is what he did so far:

Hm, I fear, that the way this is done may leave tons of setting files on the hard disk without any feedback for the user, so maybe something like a profile manager would be fine to be able to export/import/copy/delete profile sets and also allow to assign an existent profile to a printer driver instance.

A profiles manager is built directly into the driver. As long as a user does not change the name of the driver, there is no issue. As this is an extremely rare circumstance, I doubt that we will be adding some kind of external profiles manager. Most people use Profiles OR multiple instances of the driver, not both.

I thought, it would be nice to have a better integration of watermarks which makes it easier to handle and also a kind of "protection" that they can't be deleted by accident. Anyhow, not so important

In the watermarks section of PDF-XChange Standard's printing preferences, you are able to add multiple watermarks. To secure them, you will need to secure the whole document. e.g. restrict changes.

Understand the idea, but not the behaviour, shouldn't the second value be updated automatically when the first is changed by the user?

When the first is changed, I would indeed expect the second to correspond.

And I will try to finish answering the rest of the points in your post:

[Puffolino]

Hi, I am using the printer driver more frequently now, even it is a kind of fight from time to time... (compared to other solutions, the tracker software is tricky to handle in certain cases, but it has many options which are a great plus).

Anyhow some of the "tricky things" are really annoying, I just want tell you two of them now:
- the file dialog box when "printing" will be in background in certain cases - so if not forced to get active, why not at least "on top"?
- when changing a custom paper size, only one dimension will be remembered (width OR height) ?!

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Puffolino,

I'm not seeing either of these issues with build 316.1 of the printer. Are you changing the custom page size from the Custom Forms category, or the Paper category?

Also, please make sure that you're using build 316.1:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX5SA.zip

Thanks,

[Puffolino]

Hi Puffolino,

I'm not seeing either of these issues with build 316.1 of the printer. Are you changing the custom page size from the Custom Forms category, or the Paper category?

Also, please make sure that you're using build 316.1:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX5SA.zip

Thanks,

I've 315 for now, will update in the next days (but didn't find any clue in the change log that these issues have been resolved).

Issue 1:
- start the print function (from word, web browser etc.)
- select orinter driver properties
- set custom format (e.g. 400mm x 500mm)
- add profile "test" (didn't mention that )
- print
- some seconds later....
- start the print function again
- oh, "default setting" again - have to be changed: choose "test"
- "Do you really want to apply the selected profile?" - Yes
- only one of the paper dimensions is here (depends on landscape/portrait format)

Issue 2:
- do something like before
- start printing
- click on a inactive or maximize the active window (it's also good to move a window around) while the pdf printer is spooling
- then wait until spooling has been done
- the taskbar will be activated and the (oldstyle !) printer icon flashes, on the right side you see the "Printing Progress" window saying "0% done".
- then the taskbar icon or some alt+tab have to be done to bring up the save window (which is at top left window position, also not so perfect)...

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Puffolino,

I'm still not able to reproduce this here. Did updating help?

[Puffolino]

Hi Puffolino,

I'm still not able to reproduce this here. Did updating help?

Will, it's still the same (for both issues), maybe you can try this:

set custom size to 100x200 mm, save as new profile Test1
set custom size to 300x400 mm, save as new profile Test2

now select Default profile, then Test1 and Test2 at the end, do you get all the correct sizes?

Me not

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Puffolino,

Not sure what changed here, but was able to reproduce this, this morning. I've created a ticket (RT-3418) and passed the issue along for further investigation.

Apologies for the inconvenience!