SOLVED

Default Paper Size

MVP

Hi, all my regional settings, all my SharePoint online settings, all my O365 tenant settings, everything is pointing to New Zealand. Nothing is set to US.

 

The only nagging, totally annoying US convention that is persisting is that when new Word and Excel documents are created in a SharePoint (or Teams) document library, their paper size is still Letter, not A4.

 

Nobody outside of North America uses Letter paper. I have never used it and I will never use it.

 

How  can I set a default paper size for my tenant or site, so I don't have to correct the paper size setting for each new document? People who are not aware of the paper size issue are creating and printing new documents, then discard the print because it doesn't fit on the A4 paper properly, then have to change the paper size and print again.

 

That is costing a lot of money and is wasting a lot of trees. 

 

It might be possible to mess around with the Content Type and change the template file, but that is not sustainable in an environment of SharePoint and Teams self service, where everybody may create new document libraries at any time.

 

There must be a global default setting for paper size, because the majority of people in this world use A4, not Letter. If we can set a tenant-wide default for time zone, please allow us to set a tenant-wide default for paper size. 

 

Please?

 

 

7 Replies

Did you end up finding a solution to this? - I'm seeing the same issue, considering creating a MS support ticket.

I think I found the cause, it appears to be following the users regional settings for the user.
Changing the "regional format" here helped: https://myaccount.microsoft.com/settingsandprivacy/language

No, that setting is already showing the correct region, i.e. New Zealand, where we don't have Letter paper. Still, new documents are created with Letter paper size..
I have this same issue when creating documents in Teams, we always end up with letter format default. I've started to create SharePoint sites and Teams using different regional and language settings as well as testing with users with different settings and I can't find any combination to get rid of the letter default when creating a document from within Teams.
best response confirmed by Ingeborg Hawighorst (MVP)
Solution
And the solution is: The browser language setting must be your country, not US English. Duhh.

@Ingeborg Hawighorst

Let's say I'm working in France for an international school.

Would that be possible to have the A4 default format + my browser in English?

 

@Ingeborg Hawighorst  But my language setting is UK english as far as I can see, yet I get Letter

Philip_Holmes__0-1664269329257.png

 

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Ingeborg Hawighorst (MVP)
Solution
And the solution is: The browser language setting must be your country, not US English. Duhh.

View solution in original post