Printing an unknown amount of pages

[dexter30]

Hi.

I have a huge batch of documents. On every page of every batch I have to print a stamp (image) and a sequential number inside the stamp.

This part I was able to solve by inserting the image and the starting number centered in the rightmost cell of the first row. Then I duplicated this row 1000 times (cause no document has more than this amount of pages), increasing the number by 1 and mantaining the image. Then I inserted (automatically via macro) a page break on every row.

This way I can print up to 1000 times a page with a stamp and a sequence number.

The problem is, every batch of documents has a diferent and unknown beforehand number of pages. I have to count how many pages there are
so I can go to Print Window and set this amount of copies to be printed.

I wish there was a way to do it without having to count the pages before printing. One way would be to set copies to a high number (1000 or so), and put the document alone in the printer tray. After printing the last
page (e.g 85) the printer would issue the message "out of paper". Then you would have to cancel the print. But this way is unelegant and nothing practical.

Maybe there is a better way of doing this?

Any ideas will be welcome.

Thanks.

 

[pedro-egoli]

If it is an Excel document perhaps Print Preview /tweak page breaks and then return to Print Preview will show number of pages like Page 1 of 6 or whatever.

If in Word Go View/Header and footer and when drop down box appears select Page X of Y.

Pedro

 

[dexter30]

If it is an Excel document perhaps Print Preview /tweak page breaks and then return to Print Preview will show number of pages like Page 1 of 6 or whatever.

If in Word Go View/Header and footer and when drop down box appears select Page X of Y.

Pedro

Sorry, I don´t understand what this has to do with my problem.

I´m on Excel. There are already 1000 pages with stamps and numbers
ready to be printed. But I have to inform the number of copies before printing.

That´s the problem, I don´t know how many copies will have to be printed cause I don´t know how many pages there are in the batch.

Maybe there is some VBA programming that would print those pages in
sequence until there are no more pages in the printer ?

 

[pedro-egoli]

The problem is, every batch of documents has a diferent and unknown beforehand number of pages. I have to count how many pages there are
so I can go to Print Window and set this amount of copies to be printed.

Sorry I am not quite with you on what you are after.

My understanding from above was that you simply needed to know that there were say 85 pages in one batch and say 140 in another.
This is obviously incorrect.
Maybe my printer is different to yours but mine says "number of copies" and is used to determine how many copies of the one document I want for distribution purposes. With this in mind I thought you wanted to know the number of pages to be printed for some reason like, so you had enough paper.
This is obviously not correct but that was my reasoning and suggestion would have told you how many pages were in each batch.

Pedro

 

[dexter30]

Let me give a real life example:

What I have:

1. A document with unknown number of pages. Said "unknown" cause I don´t want to count them. Let´s say there are 85 pages.

2. An excel file containing 1000 stamps with sequence numbers and page break after each.

What I want: put the (85) document pages in the printer, start some command in Excel to print the stamps on all.

Present procedure:

Scenario #1: Look at the batch, hum I think there are, like 100 pages in it? Well let´s print 100 copies of the stamp. After copy #85, the printer will issue a message: "out of paper". The stamps were all printed, but I have to cancel print command on the printer or or the PC what is not the most easy task with the equipment i have.

Scenario #2: Look at the batch, hum I think there are, like 80 pages in it? Well let´s print 80 copies of the stamp. After copy #80 the printer will have its job done, but there will be 5 pages left to print.

Hope I could make myself understood...

Does anyone think there are any solutions?

 

[pedro-egoli]

So all you want for a start is to know how many pages to put in printer.

As I alluded to in my initial post, if I go to Print Preview rather than to Print it shows something like "Preview:Page 1 of 85".

That would give you the number of pages to put in.

Pedro

 

[dexter30]

No, if I go to Print Preview it will show "Preview: Page 1 of 1000".

I already said there are 1000 pages in the Excel document.

Sorry if you didn´t understand the example, but what can be clearer than that?

 

[pedro-egoli]

So there are 1000 pages and you only want to print 85 of them.

Have you tried setting the print area and then going to Print Preview and that will tell the number of pages in the print area.

Pedro

 

[xenou]

Scenario #1: Look at the batch, hum I think there are, like 100 pages in it? Well let´s print 100 copies of the stamp. After copy #85, the printer will issue a message: "out of paper". The stamps were all printed, but I have to cancel print command on the printer or or the PC what is not the most easy task with the equipment i have.

Cancelling the job is probably the simplest solution. It's awkward working with printers under the best of circumstances (at least it seems so to me). If you don't know how to cancel a job, sometimes just shutting the printer off works too. Or print off pages in batches of 25 until you're down to the last batch which you can count more accurately.

 

[dexter30]

Thanks xenou, it´s a relief to know that someone understood the problem, I was tired of explaining it over and over.

But still looking for a better solution...