Printer Presets NOT Saving

Presets no longer work in Mac OS you need to set details like media type for every job. The presets no longer serve any purpose. Every preset defines nothing. Saving a preset does nothing except creates a name for no purpose. If your media type is labels and you select save as preset, nothing is saved, when you select labels in the future as the preset, it changes nothing at all. You still have to select the media type, so, saving a preset no longer serves any purpose at all. 10 presets that represent the same exact settings. Perhaps if you saved something previously it might work but certainly all new presets saved serve no purpose at all. In order to fix a bug, (which didn't work), I reset the printer system which deleted all existing presets. All new presets contain nothing at all. Choosing a preset results in the same defaults. After saving if you select your preset it only serves to change all settings to defaults.

Hi,

I've been frustrated by the same issues as the original poster. I'm also printing from pro Epson inkjet printers and the presets, ever since the last couple OS updates (whenever the GUI change occurred), have been largely unusable causing me print reliably from a 2012 MacBook Pro running Mojave, which works great!

The presets will not save the selected settings and revert back to the default settings, for example 1440 dpi instead of 2880 dpi. I've tried it many times and have not been able to get it to work in any way (like it had for years prior) that I find adequate for professional work. The new drop down print menu looks cleaner I guess, but is awful for professionals that need to see what settings are selected, especially with such a buggy "upgrade" to the print dialog GUI that reverts every setting as soon as the drop down goes away.

I just updated to Sonoma hoping they would have fixed this, but no luck. I'm sure there is a large format Epson printer somewhere in the Apple compound with an operator that is pulling their hair out, that person can show a couple engineers exactly what we're talking about.

Hello Micksang,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. It sounds like you may not be using the MacBook Pro currently but if you are and want to troubleshoot this further, make sure that you're taking the following steps from Save frequently used print settings for routine printing on Mac - Apple Support to create your print settings.

"Save your print settings as a print job preset or custom preset

1. On your Mac, open a document, then choose File > Print. 
2. Choose any print settings you want to save as a preset.
3. Click the Presets pop-up menu, then choose Save Current Settings as Preset.
4. To save a print job or custom preset, do the following:

• Preset Name: Type a preset name.
• Available for: To create a preset for a specific printer, click the printer name or click “All printers” to make this preset available for all printers.
• Type: Click Print Job Preset to save it as a general print job preset or click Custom Preset to save the settings as a custom preset to be used with a print job preset."

Then, when you are printing again, you'll use these steps to select the preset.

"Print with your preset

1. With a document open on your Mac, choose File > Print.
2. Click the Presets pop-up menu, then choose the Standard or Print Job presets from the menu. 

You see all presets available for that printer. If you don’t see a preset, it’s possible that you created that preset for only a specific printer.

3. To optionally use custom presets, click the Presets pop-up menu, choose Presets, then choose the custom presets you want.

Tip: You can preselect a combination of custom presets to be used together. Choose Advanced Selection from the Preset menu and then click the presets you want used in combination.

4. With your preset selected, click Print."

Kind regards.

Sometimes it saves your current settings when creating a new Preset, most times it does not. Always a new named preset is created but with none of the current settings. I have never had a problem with this for the past 20 years, this must be a fairly new issue. I am only saving new presets, because it was suggested I reset my printer settings, for another reason. That other bug was fixed by an OS update. But now I need to recreate my presets and it doesn't work most of the time, I don't know why. But occasionally it does work and once a preset is saved properly it continues to work even when duplicating the preset does not work. Also simply changing the name of a preset, can set that preset back to defaults. It took over an hour to simply save one preset that was just for media type labels.

This problem may only be the "Printer dialog box" used by Acrobat that is accessed via the "Printer..." button on the "Acrobat Printer Dialog Box". So far I have not reproduced this issue with Pages.app when trying to print. The standard Dialog Printer Window for acrobat does not have a media type setting.

If this issue is only with some dialog boxes, it is possible that all new Printer Presets need to be saved in Pages.app (or another Apple native application), before using the presets in other, non-Apple applications.

A long shot but give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.