Word is connecting to printer

Printing problems can have a direct impact on your company’s productivity, and ultimately your profits, so it’s essential that they are addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible. A «connecting to printer» message in Word usually indicates an issue with the default printer in Windows.

Change the Default Printer

1. The most likely cause for the issue is that Word is unable to connect to the default printer. Open «Devices and Printers» from the «Hardware and Sound» section of Control Panel and you’ll see the default printer marked with a green tick. Right-click on a different printer and choose «Set as default printer» to reassign it. Reboot the machine and run Word again to see if the issue is resolved. If it is, you may need new drivers for the original default printer, or it may need to be reinstalled.

Download Printer Drivers

1. Downloading and installing the latest drivers for your printer can also fix the issue. Driver updates are usually available from the manufacturer’s website free of charge, and installing them improves compatibility with Word and Windows, applies the latest bug fixes from the developers and replaces any key files that may have been deleted or damaged. If you’re working with a network printer, try re-establishing the connection by reinstalling it from scratch using the instructions in the supplied documentation.

Check Printer and Connections

1. It may be an obvious fix, but it’s worth trying: Ensure your printer is correctly powered on and connected to the computer, either directly or over a network. Printing out a file from a program other than Word will establish whether or not your printer is working properly. If other applications are experiencing problems too, try restarting the printer. Double-check the connection to the computer and switch the input port it’s connected to in order to eliminate this as a potential cause of the problem.

Update Word and Windows

1. It’s essential that Word and Windows have the latest updates applied in order to ensure maximum compatibility with the other hardware and software on your system. In addition you should make sure that your installed security software — including anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall programs — are updated with the latest definitions and not interfering with Word’s access to the printers connected to your machine. Temporarily disabling your security tools one by one can help determine if one of them is causing a conflict with a local or networked printer that is slowing Word down.

«Connecting to printer, press ESC to cancel.» In nearly any other situation, simply hitting the «Esc» key would end the problem. Unfortunately, you may have found that it shuts down Word completely – and restarting simply brings the error back as well, rendering Word unusable.

When the Problem Occurs

Usually, you’ll get the «Connecting to printer» message immediately upon launching Word, before you have a chance to do anything within the application. Sometimes, you’ll find you can begin working with Word, but the program begins to hang and freeze after a few actions or menu selections. In the most serious cases, you’ll need to resort to pressing «Ctrl-Alt-Del» to bring up the Task Manager and kill the Word application.

Versions

You’re most likely to run into this problem with the combination of Word 2007 and Windows XP. The easy answer is to upgrade – not simply to fix the issue, but also for a number of other benefits. Microsoft is discontinuing all XP support as of April 2014. However, after experiencing the problem, you may find that the problem persists even after applying Windows updates and service packs, after upgrading Word itself, and even with later version of Windows such as Vista.

Cause

In almost all cases, the culprit is a networked printer. Windows is attempting to contact a resource that is not always connected to the PC on which the Office applications are installed. If it was simply a disconnected hardware resource, Windows would recognize this – but the network status stays active even when you’re disconnected, and the printer driver itself may be located on the server. Essentially, Windows is refusing to believe that the printer is not there, and keeps trying to establish a connection.

Solutions

Click the Start button, then «Devices and Printers» and remove the networked printer from your system. Change the default printer to a local printer connected directly to your computer, or even a non-existent or virtual printer such as Microsoft XPS. You can reinstall the shared printer once you reconnect to the network. The next time you launch Word, the application may take a few extra seconds to update the «changes,» but you’ll avoid the loop that terminates Word.

Writer Bio

James Lee Phillips has been a writer since 1994, specializing in technology and intellectual property issues. He holds a Bachelor of Science in communications and philosophy from SUNY Fredonia.

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Posted on Oct 16, 2007 7:06 AM

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• Question

• Our users experience sometimes the message «connecting to printer» while they open a document in Word 2010 (32-bit) on our Server 2008 R2 Terminal Server. This is behavior
  isn’t consequent but random. The default printer in this environment is a Net2Printer-printerdriver (1.16) which redirects the print jobs (in PDF-format) to the local client’s default printer. This feature works well. We don’t want to change the default printer
  because this is the right one to use by our users.

  After a long seeking trip on the internet I’ve found the Microsoft hotfix KB974991 which can fix this issue for Word 2007. My question is, is this also usable for Word
  2010 (32-bit) and if not, is there maybe another fix for the 2010 version available?

  Any other suggestions or workarounds are welcome!