"Connecting to Printer, Press ESC to Cancel" Message-> Freezes

I get the message "Connecting to Printer" at the bottom of the screen when I
try to use drop down menus in Office, try to paste something, or try to do
several other 'easy' commands. When this happens Office freezes temporarily
and, several minutes later, closes itself or finally performs the task.

Sometimes I can speed up the process by hitting ESC on the keyboard but not
always.

Also it's usually a 4 or 5 minute process trying to print something on
another Vista computer over the network. I don't think the two problems are
related, but maybe I'm wrong. Printing to an XP computer over the network is
much faster.

I'm using Office 2007 Pro Plus on a quad core computer with a good graphics
card and 2 gb RAM. Everything else runs fast, even games etc.

Make sure your printer driver is installed locally. Open your Printers
folder, remove the printer, and add it back using the Add Printer Wizard.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

Same issue here, your suggestion didn't help.

Still goes out to try and connect to the printer, I use a laptop and I have
a network with a Canon PIXMA iP4000 printer connected to a desktop Vista
Machine. I print to this printer when in the office, I tried your
suggestion, no luck. Same issue occurs when I am on the road - please don't
tell me I have to delete the printer when not in the office - crappy
'solution'.

"I also get There is insufficient memory or disk space. Word cannot display
the requested font." When opening some client documents after several seconds
of not responding. The is over a Gig of free RAM and tons of free disk
space, this is a bad/incorrect error message.

I am a software developer so we can get as technical as you like. Please
tell me how I can disable this constant polling of the default printer -
very, very, very annoying and buggy.

Maybe make the "Microsoft Office Document Image Writer" the default printer?

Don't know, don't have 2007, I just try to solve the issue.

It helps in that Word 2007 now runs without pausing every 60 seconds or so to
Connect to the Printer, but of course everything else on the machine that
worked just fine with the Canon printer now has to have the printer selected.
So, the best proposed solution so far:

1) Change Default printer
2) Start/Use Word
3) Close word
4) Change Default printer back
5) Work with every other application on my machine as normal.

So, much for multi-tasking.

Again, why does Word 2007 have to poll the default printer? Why can't this
be turned off or made to look at the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer
without changing the default printer for the entire machine? If it can be,
how?

[RusStar]

I have had this problem too, but today I uninstalled the convert to PDF add-in and also the XPS printer. The problem seems to have gone, except for in the first document I open - but even then the delay is much less.

Is this of any help to anyone?

Has anyone got a pernament fix in place, other that a work around. Surely this is a big thing and is affecting loads of people, arnt microsoft aware of this? This must be affecting a lot of busineses.

Is there not away to remove this annoying feature?

I have the same problem with Office XP running in Win XP SP3 and my Wireless HP J6400 printer. Word locks every 5 secs for 1-2 secs, while communicating with printer. I am desperately looking for a solution or I will revert to previous scheme of sharable USB printer.

i had the same issue with Vista and a network printer... after some digging i finally did a windows update through MS Office.. it has resolved my issue..

MS Word is text reflow software, not page layout based. It uses the current printer driver to determine the capabilities it offers
to the user and the way it creates page layout and automatic page breaks, the minimum margin settings, graphics print method and
font availability and download requirements from the printer currently listed in the Print dialog. If you're not installing a local
printer driver (even for a printer that is on the network), then you may want to choose the optional install MS Office Document
Image Writer (always local) as the Word default choice.

The insufficient memory message can come from several causes, including an overflow of a 64K information table or an environmental
variable pointing to a non local or not writable location, or an add-in that interferes.

"then you may want to choose the optional install MS Office Document
Image Writer (always local) as the Word default choice"

1) How do I set the default printer for Word 2007 without changing the
system default printer? I can't find where to do this.
2) I have tried to add the remote printer as a local printer by adding it
manually and using a Local Port (\\Server\PrinterName) and get Access denied,
not a helpful error msg, is there a log somewhere that might help with
figuring out why. I tried turning off both firewalls - same result - access
denied (both Vista Machines) One on a wireless network the other Ethernet
right into my wireless router. Print sharing works fine but I can't map the
remote Printer to a Local Port.

Getting either to work above would be a great help as Word is basically
unusable because of the incessant "Connecting to Printer..." without changing
the default printer for the entire machine everytime I bring it up.

My guess this comes from running in the compatability mode (maybe font,
formatting issues) as it only occurs with client documents I open. Word will
crash on opening the file and then let me open it when I try again after Word
restarts - it may or may not crash again. The only add-in I have installed
is Stamps.com to print postage.

I found that configuring the SNMP community strings resolved the problem for us. Simply assign a get and set community string on the JetDirect card on your printer then configure the printer port settings on your print server; allowing bidirectional communication between the clients and the network printers.

[carr20]

Printer Hot Fix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974991

[HairProf]

I recently had this problem wit my ASUS laptop, here's what I found.
The problem ws a conflictin program, in my case it was "Registry Mechanic" from PC Tools. I removed ALL PCtools programs.
Then, I turned my computer off. Then I removed the battery from the back.
Then I held down the on/off button for 40 seconds (without it plugged in).
Then I waited for 30 minutes for the computer to cool down.
Then plugged it in (still without the battery), and started up Windows (I have Windows 7).
Then put the battery back in.

By doing all that, my computer reset it's CMOS to default, and everythiong worked fine.

Not sure if you need to do all that, as I believe the PCTools pogram was really the key.