Disabling Printer Notifications

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 19, 2018)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

When I sent a job to the printer, a balloon popped up from the System Tray announcing that I sent a job to the printer. This was irritating because I didn't need the computer to tell me I'd sent a job to the printer and I couldn't do anything on my computer until I clicked that balloon or the print job was complete.

Then I found out this notification could be disabled, but it wasn't where I thought it was going to be. This notification is actually controlled in Windows. I use Windows XP, and here's the steps I used to disable it:

From the Start menu, choose Printers and Faxes. Windows displays the Printers and Faxes window.
Within the window, choose Server Properties from the File menu. Windows displays the Print Server Properties dialog box.
Make sure the Advanced tab is displayed. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Advanced tab of the Print Server Properties dialog box.

Make sure the Show Informational Notifications for Local Printers check box is cleared.
Make sure the Show Informational Notifications for Network Printers check box is cleared.
Click OK.
Close the Printers and Faxes window.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (457) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Changing the Starting Page Number

Word normally numbers pages in a document starting at one and extending as far as the number of pages you have. If you ...

Discover More

Associating a Name with a Position

Wouldn't it be great if Word allowed you to have a small pop-up that showed you some information associated with a ...

Discover More

Understanding the WinX Menu

Windows provides a special menu that allows you to easily access many common tools in the operating system. Here's the ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Turning Off Background Repagination

When you use Word, it normally performs several tasks in the background, while you are typing. One of those tasks is to ...

Discover More

Printing Shortcut Key Assignments from a Macro

Need to know what shortcut keys are defined? You can use a single macro command line to print out the definitions.

Discover More

Printing to a File

Word allows you to send your output to a file instead of to a printer. This tip shows you how.

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is 8 + 8?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.