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Question
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 2:18 PM | 2 votes
I have unwanted printers listed in the drop down when in the print screen in Office 2013. How do I remove them?
I can see you can 'add a printer..' but not remove?
If I remove them, will it remove it for everyone else? (I have full admin rights).
I am running MS server 2008 R2.
Bjorn
ICT Apprentice
All replies (43)
Tuesday, April 23, 2013 7:28 PM âś…Answered | 1 vote
Yes, if you uninstall a printer, it will be gone for everyone.
Go to control panel, Devices and Printers. right click on the Printer, select "remove device".
Monday, June 9, 2014 10:07 AM
I also have a lot of redundant printers and versions of current printers in the MS Word (office 365) drop down list. However going to Devices and Printers in Control Panel does not help as it only lists the current working printers, no old ones.
Any one know how to weed out defund, printers from the MS Word drop down list
Wednesday, October 8, 2014 5:40 PM
Did you ever figure out how to remove the old printers from the drop down list? I'm having the same problem.
Thanks in advance.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015 3:08 PM
I have the same issue. There are several redundant printers that are in my printer drop down list.
For whatever reason, the printer that is powered on, and showing online, does not seem to want to stay connected to the computer. The only solution seems to be to uninstall the printer and re-install it. When that happens, it leaves a copy of the printer que in the system with the documents waiting to print still listed.
Likely, somewhere in the registry, there is a ghost file that cannot be accessed from the main interface.
ANY answers would be appreciated!
Wednesday, April 29, 2015 1:20 PM | 4 votes
If you don't see the "excessive" printer at Devices and Printers, try looking at Print Management (available after you have started the Administrative Tools from Control Panel). Do you see any "left-over" printers or drivers there? What happens if you delete them?
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Monday, May 25, 2015 7:42 PM
It would be nice if you just told us what to do with this listing of unused printers. There are several bugs in office 365, and it does not seem that upgrades help any.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 9:33 AM
It would be nice if you just told us what to do with this listing of unused printers. There are several bugs in office 365, and it does not seem that upgrades help any.
There are some suggestions in this thread. What have you tried so far?
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Saturday, October 3, 2015 6:07 PM
Thank you for the starting idea.
The printer appears in Print Management, with a status of "Deleting-Offline". The printer does not delete even on a reboot. Pressing the red X on the item within Print Management returns an error, saying that the printer needs to be connected to the Network.
The reason for deleting the printer in the first place is that it would not connect, and so I initially deleted instance 1 of the printer and installed instance 2 of the printer, as suggested by MS guidance. Instance 2 is now working but instance 1 cannot be deleted from the drop down menu in Office. It was deleted from the Windows 10 list of printers.
Saturday, October 3, 2015 8:49 PM | 31 votes
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Saturday, December 12, 2015 4:24 PM
Great that works well on Windows 10
Thanks.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 12:16 PM
This worked for me , thanks!
Wednesday, November 23, 2016 3:27 PM
Bingo - this (right clicking on printer then Delete-ing it in Notepad) works! Thanks, Stefan.
Friday, December 16, 2016 10:17 PM | 1 vote
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
This was the answer for me. Cheers, Stefan, for this oddly successful workaround!
Monday, February 27, 2017 9:18 PM
My Windows 10 version of Administrative Tools does nt have a Printer Management choice.
Monday, February 27, 2017 10:18 PM
My Windows 10 version of Administrative Tools does nt have a Printer Management choice.
Perhaps you have the Home version of Windows 10? That might explain why certain options are missing.
Anyway, try deleting the printers from the Print dialog box in NotePad.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Wednesday, April 19, 2017 12:58 AM
That worked!!!! Thank You
Thursday, June 8, 2017 7:00 PM
Hi, we are running Windows 10 home, so there is not a Print Management choice. We have Office 2016 on our PC's and utilize Office 365 as well. I'm having the same problem as listed above, but when I go to Notepad, the unused printer instances are not listed. In fact, I just checked and as far as I can tell, it's only in Word 2016 that they are listed- not in either Outlook or Excel. I'd like to get them removed from Word, as people get confused and try to use them and think the printer is broken. Thanks!
Friday, June 9, 2017 9:48 AM
Hi, we are running Windows 10 home, so there is not a Print Management choice. We have Office 2016 on our PC's and utilize Office 365 as well. I'm having the same problem as listed above, but when I go to Notepad, the unused printer instances are not listed. In fact, I just checked and as far as I can tell, it's only in Word 2016 that they are listed- not in either Outlook or Excel. I'd like to get them removed from Word, as people get confused and try to use them and think the printer is broken. Thanks!
If Office stores information about available printers somewhere, I don't know where that might be, I'm afraid.
A simple test, which you may already have tried, is to restart Windows.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Thursday, July 20, 2017 10:34 AM | 1 vote
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
This works. So why can't it be done in Word (which we pay a fortune for as part of Office) yet it can be done in the free Notepad! Head in hands moment! :-(
The inconsistencies across Microsoft's own software are bewildering.
Thursday, July 20, 2017 7:13 PM | 1 vote
The problem here is that Word does not use the standard Windows dialog box for printing; instead, it makes use of a custom dialog box (File | Print) which does not let you "manipulate" the printers in the same way that NotePad does.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Tuesday, August 22, 2017 6:56 PM | 1 vote
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
YES! THANKS!
Monday, February 12, 2018 6:47 PM | 1 vote
That works for me too using Notepad. Took me a long time to catch this. What a round about way
of deleting unwanted printer on the list. Microsoft should fix this problem.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018 12:36 AM
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Stefen,
That did it!
Thank You
Mike
Wednesday, March 7, 2018 5:31 PM
If you don't see the "excessive" printer at Devices and Printers, try looking at Print Management (available after you have started the Administrative Tools from Control Panel). Do you see any "left-over" printers or drivers there? What happens if you delete them?
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
This is it, this is the answer.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 8:25 PM
Others have suggested that starting NotePad and clicking File | Print will let you delete the printer in the Print dialog box for NotePad. Right-click the printer icon and choose the option to delete it.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Amazing thank you. This workaround still working 2 and a half years later.
Friday, May 4, 2018 4:37 PM
What if I don't have "Print Management" showing or even an option for Administrative Tools in Control Panel?
Sunday, May 6, 2018 11:09 PM
What if I don't have "Print Management" showing or even an option for Administrative Tools in Control Panel?
As suggested earlier in this thread, start NotePad, display the Print dialog box and delete the printers from there.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Thursday, May 10, 2018 11:47 PM
It worked in Notepad then I checked Word and they had also been removed from the dropdown list. Thanks Stefan.
Friday, May 11, 2018 8:30 AM
It worked in Notepad then I checked Word and they had also been removed from the dropdown list. Thanks Stefan.
I'm glad I could help. Thanks for the feedback.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Thursday, June 14, 2018 11:03 PM
YES! That worked!
Thank you so much! Really. You are the first person to actually answer the question of this thread.
These old ghost printers persist within Word and other Office apps and do not show up in the normal System "Printers and Scanners" dialog box. I think that is why the MS help people could not grasp why their suggestions did not work. You can't fix this using the normal tools.
You can not delete a ghost printer that does not appear in the "Printers and Scanners" dialog.
For those having this ghost or duplicate printer problem:
1) Open Notepad (appears as a Win 10 app sometimes)
2) Click File, then Print
3) Scroll around to find the ghost or duplicate printer(s)
4) Select the ghost printer or duplicate printer and RIGHT CLICK
5) Select Delete and accept the deletion warning
Printer is removed! Thanks for the NOTEPAD TRICK
See even these old utility programs have their uses. So old or simple they just bypass the problems.
Thursday, June 14, 2018 11:11 PM
No, it is not. The Notepad trick works regardless of Admin Tools, Printer and Scanners dialog options, or manipulation with Print Management.
See the Notepad Trick in the rest of this thread for a workaround fix that works for everybody.
It will get rid of ghost and duplicate printers listed in Office apps, like Word yet do not appear in the Printer and Scanners dialog, Admin Tools, or Print Management.
I say this because I wasted hours trying the conventional suggestions, the Notepad trick fixed it in seconds.
Saturday, July 7, 2018 2:00 AM
This works great! It was the only way to remove unwanted printers for me. Thanks!
Monday, August 13, 2018 8:58 PM
That worked! Thanks!
Tuesday, December 18, 2018 5:15 PM
If you don't see the "excessive" printer at Devices and Printers, try looking at Print Management (available after you have started the Administrative Tools from Control Panel). Do you see any "left-over" printers or drivers there? What happens if you delete them?
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
This small change of configuration straightened the list accordingly in Word as well!
Thanks!
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 7:11 PM
I have just removed an error - deleting <g class="gr_ gr_289 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="289" id="289">printer</g> from MS Office 16 Printer dropdown box by using Notepad. Thank you guys for your inputs posted here. It's really helpful.
Sandy_132
Saturday, June 8, 2019 3:10 PM
Thank you <g class="gr_ gr_19 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep" data-gr-id="19" id="19">Stefan</g>! That suggestion was so crazy-simple that it worked!
Tuesday, September 24, 2019 12:02 AM
This worked for me...thank you!
Friday, October 4, 2019 3:59 AM
THANK YOU ! This was driving me nuts - your solution did the trick.
Thursday, October 24, 2019 11:54 PM
Wrong. I have Drivers listed in Word 365 even after I have deleted them from Win 10 and rebooted.
Friday, October 25, 2019 11:01 PM
Wrong. I have Drivers listed in Word 365 even after I have deleted them from Win 10 and rebooted.
If deleting the printer in Control Panel or Windows Settings does not work, try deleting it from the Print dialog box in NotePad, as suggested earlier in this thread.
Stefan Blom, Microsoft Word MVP
Wednesday, July 8, 2020 8:37 PM
This works perfect on W10. Go to Notepad and delete what is not wanted.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020 8:34 PM
Who ever thought of opening notepad and deleting the ghost printer, worked! Thanks
Bob
Saturday, July 25, 2020 5:19 PM
it's July 2020. Same problem in MS 365. And the above hint (delete in notepad) worked. It's a goofy solution, but, hey, it worked, the no-longer-in-use printer is GONE from 365.