Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How do I make a printer the default printer?

  • 8 replies
  • 13 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Cyberknight

more options

I have multiple printers, but I want my B/W laser printer to be the default one, especially for sites that don't give me a print box with options. Currently, some sites send the data to my bubble-jet all-in-one, a printer I prefer NOT to use.

I have multiple printers, but I want my B/W laser printer to be the default one, especially for sites that don't give me a print box with options. Currently, some sites send the data to my bubble-jet all-in-one, a printer I prefer NOT to use.

Chosen solution

I had the same problem, with Firefox reverting to an all in one printer that I rarely use ignoring the default laser printer. I cured it by deleting the all in one and printing from Firefox. Next time I rebooted, Windows "found new hardware", but Firefox remembered the laser printer as default.

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (8)

more options

How To Set a Default Printer or Delete a Printer

DISCLAIMER: The above-mentioned URL would take you to a non-Mozilla Web site. Mozilla does not control it and is not responsible for information outside of Mozilla web sites.

more options

Within Firefox the last used printer is the default printer.

more options

Is there any way to change this? Multi-user office with different printers & I want it to default to my computer's printer.

more options

No, the last used printer is the default and there is no setting to override it automatically to any other specific printer. Now IIRC, if the current "default" network printer isn't turned on, Firefox may go to a printer using a USB or parallel connection. But I haven't been in a network environment like that for a few years now and my recollection is fuzzy.

more options

Thanks!

more options

Windows 7 64-bit, FF 20.0.1 refused to remember last printer used as default until I changed print_printer to 'blank' in about:config ... John York, UK

more options

Chosen Solution

I had the same problem, with Firefox reverting to an all in one printer that I rarely use ignoring the default laser printer. I cured it by deleting the all in one and printing from Firefox. Next time I rebooted, Windows "found new hardware", but Firefox remembered the laser printer as default.

more options

I had a related problem. Actually, it was not a problem at first. It's long since the first time I realized that Firefox remembered the last printer used and most (although not all) settings, what was very good, because I didn't had to set every little option of the current printer again and again every time I had to print something.

It became a problem, though, when I moved (temporarily) to another office division, with another printer, and I wanted to make a simple "Print Preview" to check if a Page was fine to be printed (that is, I had no intention of print anything, I just wanted to see how the Page I was browsing would look like on paper). Firefox popped a "The selected printer could not be found" error message, not allowing me to change to another printer, one that it could find, for that matter.

The suggested solution wasn't good for me: removing the printer from my O.S., restarting everything and reopening Firefox, hoping that it would realize that its default printer was not available on the system anymore, allowing a print preview using the actual system's default printer. I would have to work on different divisions the next days, so it was unacceptable that I had to remove/add drivers and printers and whatever from my O.S. every time I'd want to see how a Page would be printed!

I looked for an answer on search engines (yes, it didn't have the answer!), on some add-on, but found nothing. I turned here to report a bug and tried, as a last resort, to search for someone that had the same problem.

jrg1york was on the right track: go to the about:config Page, search for the "print_printer" entry and clear it. It doesn't just solve the default printer problem, but also the buggy print preview functionality. The problem is solved to me, now I know how to fix it, but it should be solved on Firefox (it should clear or ignore the "print_printer" key when the default printer is not available).