Remove Media Sizes in Illustrator Print Dialog

[Grizzly]

Does anyone know how to reduce/remove the number of paper sizes in this list?
I don't know why I have to scroll through all of them trying to find the 5 sizes I uses.

 

[VizualVoice]

interested to see the answer

 

[Graphic Extremes]

I am interested in answer also

 

[TumwaterTom]

In the olden days on the mac, it was easy to edit a copy of the .ppd file in a a text editor and just remove the lines with the page sizes you did not want as well as add page sizes you wanted, but this was in the wild west early nineties. I am not sure if it would be a similar process now or not.

 

[Boudica]

Seems like more of a back-room kind of change, rather than print dialog interface. Maybe you could create your own presets and edit it there? I don't use a cannon, and I don't print to our large format printers from Illy though, so I'm not sure how to check out my preset theory.

 

[chrisphilipps]

Those sizes are typically set by the driver of the printer or Windows. Illustrator just pulls the data when you click on the print dialog. If you know what you are doing you could try and edit the printer's PPD file and remove the additional sizes. Below is a quick guide based on doing this in Windows 10 or 11 Professional. The home edition of Windows probably won't have the MMC.exe tool and you will have to manually find the PPD file. I am not aware of any work arounds if Windows adds the sizes.

Search for MMC.exe and open it.
Go to File and select Add or Remove Snap-ins
Find Print Manager and add it to the Selected Snap-ins
Tell it to use the Local Server
Click OK on Add or Remove Snap-ins
Expand Print Management, Print Servers, Computer Name, and click on Drivers
Find the Driver for your printer and right click on it and select Properties.
The Driver properties will list the driver files, find the one that ends in .PPD and use the Driver Path above to locate it.
Make a backup of the PPD in case it get's corrupted, do not edit the backup.

Copy the PPD file to your desktop and then open the PPD in a Text editor, like NotePad ++.

Search the file for PageSize and remove the ones you don't want.

For instace, to get ride of A4 on my printer I would remove the below text.

*PageSize A4/A4: "
/OK@setpagesize where{ pop 0 OK@setpagesize
}{ << /PageSize [595 842] >> setpagedevice
}ifelse"
*End


Make sure the DefaultPageSize is set to a Page Size that still exists after you are done.
Save the PPD and Overwrite the one that was in the driver folder with the new file.

You will probably have to restart Adobe Illustrator for it to see the changes.

 

[netsol]

Those sizes are typically set by the driver of the printer or Windows. Illustrator just pulls the data when you click on the print dialog. If you know what you are doing you could try and edit the printer's PPD file and remove the additional sizes. Below is a quick guide based on doing this in Windows 10 or 11 Professional. The home edition of Windows probably won't have the MMC.exe tool and you will have to manually find the PPD file. I am not aware of any work arounds if Windows adds the sizes.

Search for MMC.exe and open it.
Go to File and select Add or Remove Snap-ins
Find Print Manager and add it to the Selected Snap-ins
Tell it to use the Local Server
Click OK on Add or Remove Snap-ins
Expand Print Management, Print Servers, Computer Name, and click on Drivers
Find the Driver for your printer and right click on it and select Properties.
The Driver properties will list the driver files, find the one that ends in .PPD and use the Driver Path above to locate it.
Make a backup of the PPD in case it get's corrupted, do not edit the backup.

Copy the PPD file to your desktop and then open the PPD in a Text editor, like NotePad ++.

Search the file for PageSize and remove the ones you don't want.

For instace, to get ride of A4 on my printer I would remove the below text.

*PageSize A4/A4: "
/OK@setpagesize where{ pop 0 OK@setpagesize
}{ << /PageSize [595 842] >> setpagedevice
}ifelse"
*End


Make sure the DefaultPageSize is set to a Page Size that still exists after you are done.
Save the PPD and Overwrite the one that was in the driver folder with the new file.

You will probably have to restart Adobe Illustrator for it to see the changes.

there is no group policy functionality in home. go to krbkeys.com. the upgrade is only $20 or $30

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Make a backup of the PPD in case it get's corrupted, do not edit the backup.

Or if the edit doesn't work out and have to regress back to the old version.

On Linux, if I want to keep something right handy, but not have it affect what I'm doing, I would append the .old extension to it that way just have to remove it and it's good to go. I think on Windows it would be .bak, but it's been so long since I seriously used Windows, I can't remember.