XL97: Not All Workbooks Print When Printing from Windows Explorer

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

When you right-click a group of Microsoft Excel workbooks in Windows Explorer and then click Print, some of the files are not printed.

WORKAROUND

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1. Create a Visual Basic for Applications procedure that will print all open workbooks. The following steps illustrate how to create this procedure so that it is available to you every time that you start Excel.



1. Save and close any open workbooks and then open a new workbook.



2. Start the Visual Basic Editor (press ALT+F11).



3. On the Insert menu, click Module.



4. Type the following code into the module sheet:




Sub PrintAllOpenFiles()
   Dim x as Workbook
 
   ' Loop through all open workbooks.
   For Each x In Application.Workbooks

      ' You don't want to print this workbook.
      If x.Name <> ThisWorkbook.Name Then
    
         ' Activate the workbook. 
         x.Activate

         'Print the active worksheet in the current workbook.
         x.SelectedSheets.PrintOut copies:=1

         ' Close the current workbook.
         x.Close
     End If
   Next x

   'Remove the apostrophe from the next line of code if you 
   'want to exit Excel when this process has completed.
   'Application.Quit
End Sub 

5. On the File menu, click Close and Return to Microsoft Excel.



6. On the File menu, click Save As.



7. Browse to your Xlstart folder (usually located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Xlstart). In the File name box, type PrintAllFiles.xls and then click Save.
   
   Saving this file to your Xlstart folder ensures that the macro is available to you every time that you start Excel. If you save this file to another location, then you must open this file when you want to print all open documents.



8. On the Window menu, click Hide.



9. On the File menu, click Exit. Click Yes when you are prompted to save PrintAllFiles.xls.



2. In Windows Explorer, select the files that you want to print.



3. Right-click the selected files and then click Open on the shortcut menu.
   
   Excel opens all of the selected files.



4. On the Tools menu, point to Macro and then click Macros. Click PrintAllFiles.xls!PrintAllOpenFiles, and then click Run.
   
   Excel prints the active worksheet in each open workbook, and then closes the workbook.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

Additional query words: XL97 batch

Keywords          : 
Version           : WINDOWS:97
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbbug 

Last Reviewed: August 8, 1999