Brian Stevenson's Blog

Solution: PowerPoint is currently printing. Yet, PowerPoint Does Not Print!

Today I got a real mind-bender of a problem. PowerPoint 2010 was refusing to print slides. After sending the print job to the printer, it would just sit there doing nothing. Giving up, I exited out of PowerPoint and got this error message:

PowerPoint is currently printing. Quitting will cancel all pending print jobs.

Really... it doesn't appear to be printing from my end! As it turns out, there are two workarounds:

Workaround #1 - Uncheck "Print Comments and Ink Markup"
In the Print dialog box, look for the Settings section. In the drop down list labeled, "Full Page Slides" click to see all of the available options. At the very bottom of that list you will see something CHECKED that says, "Print Comments and Ink Markup". UNCHECK that bad boy and you'll be good to go!

Workaround #2 - Save As... PDF then Print from Acrobat Reader"
From the File menu in PowerPoint, choose Save As. Under the "Save As Type" list, select: PDF (*.pdf). Click Save. Open that document in Adobe Reader and viola, it prints like a champ.

If this workaround was helpful, take moment to...

Adobe Acrobat Reader X - There was an error opening this document. Access denied.

This morning I tried to open a PDF from GroupWise, our email program. Immediately, I got an error message in Adobe Acrobat Reader X, "There was an error opening this document. Access denied." Since we recently upgraded to Adobe Reader 10.0 (X), I figured it was a new security setting in the application.

As it turns out, this new version of Acrobat is using the "principle of least privilege". I darn near bored myself to death reading a three-part series on Adobe's new Protected Mode.

To make things simple for you, here are two ways for you fix the problem:

A. Fix One PC

  1. Launch Adobe Acrobat Reader X
  2. Go to: Edit > Preferences...
  3. Click on "General" in the left pane.
  4. Uncheck "Enable Protected Mode at startup"
  5. You will prompted with a dialog box to remind you to close the application for the change to go into effect. Click Yes.
  6. Click OK to save your change.
  7. Exit Adobe Reader

B. Fix Several PCs in Your Organization
Following the above steps aren't...

How to get Internet Information Server to work with new Office 2010 / 2007 documents

This morning I got a call from an Administrative Assistant about a new Office 2010 document not working on our intranet web site. It was giving her the 404 File not Found Error. After confirming the URL of the file was correct, it dawned on me that IIS has locked down the MIME types. We recently upgraded our computers from Office 2000 to Office 2010, so that means new file extensions are in effect: docx, xlsx, pptx, etc.

Here's how to fix the problem in Internet Information Services 6.0 (IIS):
1. Open your IIS Manager.
2. Right click on Web Sites.
3. Choose Properties
4. Go to the HTTP Headers tab.
5. Click the "Mime Types..." button
6. Add the following MIME types:

.docm application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12
.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
.dotm application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12
.dotx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template
.potm application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12
.potx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml....

Kingdom Prototype #17 - Chosen for The Name

I'm in the software development business. In 2002, I was asked to design a complex software program that would help forecast our sales, cost, and profitably each week. I reviewed the requirements, began to imagine what it would look like, and drew up some sketches. After thoughtful consideration, I estimated it would take me one year to build it. It was no small undertaking!

Given the scope and size of this project, the stakeholders wanted a working prototype of the system. A prototype isn’t the final product; it's only a representation of the core features to help illustrate what it will look like when it is complete. If the prototype is approved, we will officially kickoff the project. If the prototype does not get approved, the whole project gets canned or is seriously renovated.

In preparing this prototype, I had to take the ideas that were in my head, and make them into a tangible reality – but not in a permanent sense. It just had to be good...

Kingdom House #16 – Ow! She's a brick... house

At the risk of sounding cheeky, I’d like to quote the first verse of a hit funk-disco song from 1977. Before you send me hate mail, please remember the lyrics were written by Shirley Hanna-King, the wife of one of the band members in The Commodores. HUSBAND and WIFE! (Right now I'm getting flashbacks of a Song of Solomon lesson I gave to a group of teens. LOL)

Ow, she's a brick house
She's mighty, mighty, just lettin' it all hang out
Ow, she's a brick house
I like ladies stacked, that's a fact, ain't holdin' nothin' back
Ow, she's a brick house
Well-built together, everybody knows, this is how the story goes...

We don't need to read the rest of THAT story to get the point: His woman is a mighty, well-built house, yes? Not one of those flimsy straw or stick varieties we read about in the Three Little Pigs.

Up to this point in Hebrew history, God's house was just a Tabernacle -- a fancy name for a floppy tent. Back in the days of Moses and Joshua, it made a lot of...

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