Quicken for Windows Print Scaling Not Working

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JoelC
JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭

I am running Windows 11 and Quicken for Windows R53.26.

I can print from reports, etc. from Quicken for Windows with no problem.

I cannot scale the print settings per the below image (i.e., Page scaling is greyed out) which makes printing wider reports very difficult.


Would appreciate help in getting this working.

Thank you.

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Answers

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    You are seeing a combination of two problems.

    1. The page scaling option in Quicken only works when the Quicken PDF printer is chosen as the "printer".
    2. The Print preview in Quicken is only correct if the Windows display scaling option is set to 100%. See this discussion from 2019..

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  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Jim_Harman appreciate the response, very helpful indeed.

    The Quicken PDF Printer does not appear as a "printer option".

    Would you please explain how the Quicken PDF Printer can be added as a "printer option".

    Thank you.

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    The PDF printer is a standard part of the US QWin installation. Did I gather from another of your posts that you are running the Canada version? That might explain the difference.

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  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Jim_Harman correct, I am running the Canadian version of QW. I am not discounting the possibility of not including the Quicken PDF printer in the Canadian version but it strikes me as odd to exclude it, what would be the rationale of excluding a printer driver (especially when printer reports is essentially impossible without it).

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Perhaps, like the Morningstar data, Quicken only licensed the PDF printer driver for use in the US.

    But let's focus on your original question, about page scaling. Have you tried right clicking on your desktop, selecting Display settings, and setting the scale setting to 100%? That may make the text on your screen uncomfortably small, but it should make the Print Preview fill the whole page and match the size of the printed text. Does that work for you?

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  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Jim_Harman appreciate the suggestion but I have a 5K monitor so scaling the settings to 100% is not at option, the text in the resulting image is incredibly small. It does, that said, make Print Preview fill the whole page and match the size of the printed text.

    The result of this is that I will be exporting reports to Excel and then spending time reformatting them because the export function is not ideal / perfect (i.e., some Excel columns contain multiple fields [i.e., Category and the Sub-Category]). This is an incredible waste of time (though I could write a series of data queries to automate the process).

    Perhaps someone from Quicken can explain why fixing the Print Scaling is not a top priority for Quicken?

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    I dug a little deeper and note that per the below image the Quick PDF driver was installed on my computer as part of the Quick install.

    The issue / problem is that the Quicken PDF driver was not installed in Quicken / Windows (i.e., it does not appear as a printer option).

    This resulted in me searching for instructions on how to install this driver and I found this article.

    https://www.quicken.com/support/error-when-printing-pdf-file-pdf-driver-cannot-be-found

    While I am close, I am not there because when I double click on the InstallPDFConverter.exe (i.e., there is file called install.exe) nothing happens (i.e., there is n dialog box, there is no Amyuni Document Converter window as the instructions suggest, etc.).

    Would appreciate any and all help in getting this fixed.

    Thank you.

  • mshiggins
    mshiggins SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I have very little experience in this area, but my quick test suggests to me that the "Quicken" PDF printer may not be necessary - possibly any PDF printer will do.

    I use a free PDF printer called "CutePDF Writer" for all my PDF files, including printing from Quicken. I never have any problem with CutePDF and it appears to me that when Quicken "prints" to CutePDF, the page scaling works.

    It should be fairly trivial to test it out yourself. Download it here:

    https://pdf.wondershare.net/ad/pdf-editor/

    -JP

    Quicken user since Q1999. Currently using QW2017.
    Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @mshiggins appreciate the response but note that I have both the Adobe PDF print driver and the Microsoft print driver as options and neither works.

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Perhaps someone from Quicken can explain why fixing the Print Scaling is not a top priority for Quicken?

    In general, "top priority" is going to be the problems/features that are requested the most. Print Scaling doesn't fit that.

    I just looked at it, and the only one that allows selecting it for me is the Quicken PDF Printer.

    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Chris_QPW, appreciated.


    I now need to figure out a way if adding that driver.

    Thank you.

  • RichardCSchreyer
    RichardCSchreyer Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Did you try using RestorePDFDriver.bat found in Programfiles

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @RichardCSchreyer yes, I did! No joy unfortunately!

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited December 2023
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    I will try to contact Quicken on Tuesday to see whether then can assist in getting the driver installed.

  • raustin316
    raustin316 Member ✭✭✭
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    I am having problems with the margins on the report. I can't seem to get it to "fit to page".

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Welcome to the club / problem.

    While I have spoken with Quicken support about this problem I do not think that it will get solved any time soon, it simply does not appear to be a priority for them.

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
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    FWIW - I am using the Canadian version and:

    • I do have the "Quicken PDF Printer on null" present in Quicken
    • I generally use the "Microsoft PDF Printer on PORTPROMPT" when printing PDFs in Quicken
    • The Microsoft PDF printer does not support scaling in Quicken (greyed out)
    • The Quicken PDF Printer does support scaling (not greyed out)
    • I have used the Cute PDF Printer in the past (and quite liked it), but don't have it installed on my current machine… only because I haven't needed it

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Arctic Hare , how did you get the Quicken PDF Printer to install as I cannot get it loaded, een when following Quicken's posted instructions? I would love to be able to get this working.

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 10
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    @raustin316

    Did you see my post at the top of this discussion? If the issue is with the Print preview but not with the printed page, you can right click on your Windows desktop, pick Display settings, and temporarily set the Scale to 100%. This may make the text on screen uncomfortably small, but it should fix the print preview. You can set it back to the previous setting when you are done printing.

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  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
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    I don't know… it has just been there for as long as I can remember… and that might be measured in decades ;-)

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Arctic Hare , appreciate the response. I will give Quicken a call and see whether they can assist.

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
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    You might also give Cute PDF a try. I had only good experience with that application and I wouldn't hesitate to install it on my current system if I had a need for such. In this case, if Cute PDF is solution, it might be easier just to adopt the workaround rather than try to figure out why you are missing the normally available Quicken PDF printer… although, trying to get to the root of the issue could help others in long run!

    There are some oddities with printers in Quicken. For example, I don't see the port references in the printer names when using other applications, e.g. the "on PORTPROMPT" that is appended to Microsoft PDF printer in Quicken is not present when using other apps. In other apps, it is just "Microsoft Print to PDF" (with no "on PORTPROMPT) appended. I've always found that peculiar, but never spent time trying to reason it out…. that is, reason out why Quicken appends a reference to the port.

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Arctic Hare a point of clarification, are you saying that when you added / loaded Cute PDF that you were able to get Print Scaling to work?

    Thanks.

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    I spent about 90 minutes on the phone with a very patient Level 3 support person.

    We discovered that the Quicken PDF driver was not running because I am running Quicken for Windows on an ARM computer virtualized.


    We further discovered that the company behind the Quicken PDF file has a newer driver than the one currently available / included with Quicken for Windows.

    While that driver loaded and appeared in the Quicken printer list, it kicked up a printer error. The Level 3 tech support advised that he would chase down a new driver for me.


    I hope this helps.

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I hope Quicken adds the updated driver to its standard distribution.

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  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Jim_Harman , agreed! I not only hope that they add the updated driver but I also hope that they fix all the nits that have been discovered / identified. Following the deep dive that I dig over the last 4 to 8 weeks, I am at the point where I would like to get all the nits edits fixed before new functionality is added.

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
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    I am at the point where I would like to get all the nits edits fixed before new functionality is added.

    That has been my overarching position with Quicken for years… please, please, please, fix the bugs and existing issues before using scarce resources to add new functionality. I am much more concerned with existing functionality not working well than I am with getting new functionality.

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited January 10
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    @Arctic Hare precisely. I would like to know that the functionality / results are correct and bullet proof (which they currently are not) before more features are added!

    In my particular situation I have spent countless WASTED hours over the last two months digging into things that look suspicious only to find that they were bugs / issues that had not yet been fixed / patched and, in many circumstance, are not planned to be fixed / patched any time soon. The PDF driver being a perfect example.

    The Level 3 support person I was speaking with today WHO WAS AWESOME told me that Community Forum Interest / Votes is a critical input in determining what gets fixed and, should only a few people voice interest, it can take a very long time (which I interpreted as never) to get fixed.

  • Arctic Hare
    Arctic Hare SuperUser ✭✭✭✭
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    I don't recall whether I ever attempted print scaling with the Cute PDF application. If memory serves me correctly, I installed Cute PDF because I needed to edit PDFs on my personally owned computer. I have Acrobat (Standard, not Reader) on my work-provided PC. I probably needed some of the functionality of Acrobat Standard and chose to install Cute PDF to get that functionality. In fact, I may have used Cute PDF before Microsoft provided a PDF printer driver. At one time MS was pushing its XMP standard before adopting PDF. All that to say, my reasons for using Cute PDF were likely entirely unrelated to the problem you are facing. I just remember I was impressed by the functionality of the Cute PDF app considering it was free. I think I might have paid a small fee to get more functionality with Cute PDF at one time as well… but, again, it has been years since I've used it.

  • JoelC
    JoelC Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @Arctic Hare appreciated with thanks.

This discussion has been closed.