Print button grayed out after editing Excel sheet. Changing printers and then changing back fixes it.

Anonymous
2025-05-09T19:01:20+00:00

We have a M365 user that is having trouble with printing from Excel only. We can open a spreadsheet and print normally, but when anything gets edited, it grays out the print button. I can get to the print dialog, but the button to actually print is what is grayed out. The workaround I found is to manually select a different printer in the print dialog, then select the original, default printer again. This allows it to print again, but the error always returns. It seems to be happening with any Excel file. I have tried the same files on other PCs and could not replicate the problem. I tried the online Office repair, but that did not help. Any ideas?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-20T13:14:58+00:00

    So it looks like this might not be 100% Microsoft's issue. We've found that if we disable Adobe Acrobat's PDFMaker.OfficeAddin COM add-in in Excel and then close and reopen Excel, everything works just fine after that. We're seeing this across multiple builds of Excel, and the only commonality is the fact that disabling the COM add-in fixes the issue. None of us actually have the paid version of Adobe Acrobat, so this add-in is useless to us, but it seems like this could cause issues for others, so it still needs to be resolved.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-10T17:16:05+00:00

    I have discovered more information about this problem. The issue is only present when printing by going to File, Print. The first time after opening a document when I click on File, Print it will allow me to click the print button, but subsequent times going that route have the print button unclickable. If I use the Ctrl+P shortcut, the print button is clickable every time.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-14T14:38:54+00:00

    We don't even have to edit anything for it to happen. We'll open a workbook, print one worksheet tab, then click on the next worksheet tab to try to print it, and the button is grayed out.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-12T15:34:29+00:00

    We've been seeing this on several computers today, and it happens no matter which spreadsheets are opened or which printer is selected. The computers are a mix of W10/W11 builds and print to many different printers, and the only thing seemingly in common is they all have the same build of M365 Apps of 16.0.18827.20008. As you mentioned, the CTRL+P option works fine for us as well.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-05-09T20:21:48+00:00

    Yes, when we open a spreadsheet, it will print normally. Something is happening during the editing/printing process that causes the print button to not be selectable on the print dialog afterwards while we still have it open. Selecting a different printer from the print dialog, and then changing back to the original printer will make the button clickable, and it prints correctly. Saving then reopening the sheet will allow printing one time as well, then the issue returns. By "greyed out" (grayed here in the USA) I mean the button is not lit up and can not be clicked. This is on the print dialog that pops up with Ctrl+P or by clicking File, Print.

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