Can't Print to PDF from Office Applications

Printing to the FileCenter PDF printer from Microsoft Office applications can be affected by a setting called background printing. We recommend disabling this option. This article describes how to do it.

What Are The Consequences?

When background printing is enabled, it makes it so you can keep working in Word while your print job gets sent to the printer. If you disable the option, you'll have to wait while your print job is sent to the printer. But this is a minor inconvenience – you already wait with most of your other programs.

The problem with background printing is that programs which integrate with the print function can't connect to it reliably. It's a common problem that affects many programs.

Office 2007

For Microsoft Word:

1. Click Word's main button in the upper left-hand corner
2. Click "Word Options" at the bottom of the menu of options
3. Select the "Advanced" option on the left
4. Scroll down to the "Print" section
5. Deselect "Print in Background"
6. Click OK

Repeat this procedure for your other Office programs.

Office 2003/XP and Older

For Microsoft Word:

1. Go to Word's "Tools" menu > "Options"
2. Select the "Print" tab
3. Deselect "Background Printing"
4. Click OK

Repeat this procedure for your other Office programs.