Word 2013 forgets printer settings

I can assure you that Word has never saved printer settings with the document--not in any version, and I've used every version since Word 2.0 for Windows (except Word 2000). Publisher does this, and I agree it's handy, but I don't really expect ever to see it in Word.

The rationale usually offered is that Office is often used on a network, and there's no guarantee that a specific printer will be available. Similarly, if a Word document is shared with someone on a different system/network, the default/available printers will be different. If a document insisted on being printed on a printer that was not available on a given system, users would be frustrated by error messages. The reason Publisher can get away with linking to a specific printer would be that theoretically Publisher is not designed to be used on a network and that Publisher publications are less often shared (just because fewer users have Publisher, and they're often sent to commercial printers in another format).

You can argue with all this reasoning, but that is what we have been told by Microsoft.

My 2 cents. I find the way print settings in Word 2013 waste a lot of time and resources. I want to add my voice to the others that hate this. I don't have any old versions installed so I can't test it here but my recollection is that things changed in 2013. I don't remember having to reset printer settings each time I open an old document in older versions of Word.

The fact that Word reverts to a set of default printer settings each time I open the program to use an existing document is a real pain to me. I can see this happening on a new document but it's seldom useful on existing documents. The label layout I printed yesterday isn't going to go to my default printer ever! I have 3 printers. I print most things on the default printer but I use a label printer for printing label documents every time I open them. I do a lot of repetitive printing of existing documents and labels so the the printer settings are specific to the document I am working on. When the printer reverts to the default each time I open Word forgetting to change settings wastes the printout. I want to use the same printer settings each time I open an existing document. The fact that I have to remember to change the settings each time is STUPID. But then I miss WP too.

That's a possibility, I suppose.

I'm wondering where these users are clicking "Apply," as there is no such button in Word's Print dialog or the Print tab of the backstage. It sounds as if they might be changing their printer Properties, but printer Properties changed through Word do not affect the Properties as set from the Printers folder, and those are what Word relies on at startup.

Please note that this is a user-to-user forum. Suggestions for Microsoft can be submitted in the form at http://support.microsoft.com/common/survey.aspx?scid=sw;en-us;2222&altStyle=MFE&renderOption=OverrideDefault&showpage=1&fr=1&nofrbrand=1 (Office 2013/365) or at https://feedback.office.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scrx=1 (Office 2007/2010).