If you’ve been using QuickBooks for any length of time, you’ve become familiar with the problems that seem to plague QuickBooks PDF functions such as invoicing. After upgrading to Windows 10 this week, I went to bill my clients only to find that once again I couldn’t get PDF’s to create properly. I had a couple of different error messages come up instead.
[callout]Your forms were not sent because QuickBooks could not create the necessary PDF files.[/callout]
And also
[callout]QuickBooks could not save your form as a PDF file.[/callout]
I went promptly to the online QuickBooks knowledge base and found a QB Print and PDF Repair Tool. I excitedly downloaded it and ran it only to find that it didn’t actually repair anything.
Don’t be dismayed though. The first thing you should know is that printing PDF’s in QuickBooks 2012 DOES WORK in Windows 10! It may just take some puzzling around to get it working.
Windows 10 isn’t all that fundamentally different than Windows 8.1 and so I figured the process should still work in some fashion. After opening the Print Management tool and looking at the properties, here is what I’ve found has happened.
- When installing Windows 10, it creates a new Microsoft XPS Document Writer with what I believe is a new driver and attaches it to a port called PORTPROMPT:
In order to get QuickBooks to print properly again, I did the following:
- Open the Print Management program (you can do something similar in Devices and Printers but the steps will be slightly different)
- Delete the Microsoft XPS Document Writer
- Add a new printer using the following steps
- Right click in the white space below the printers and choose Add Printer
- Choose Create a new port and add a new printer and select Local Port
- Name the port XPS
- Choose Install a new driver
- Click Have Disk and browse to the location of where you have probably previously downloaded a new Microsoft XPS Document Writer driver (C:WindowsSystem32Microsoft XPS Document Writer in my case) and select the driver prnms001.inf. If you don’t have a copy of the driver, feel free to download it here.
Microsoft XPS 64-bit Driver
file(s) 87.36 KB 
- Make sure the Printer Name is Microsoft XPS Document Writer, with no additional characters
- Click Next and the printer should be added.
- Right click in the white space below the printers and choose Add Printer
After adding that back in, get back into QuickBooks and try creating a PDF and you should be good to go! Let me know if you were successful in getting this to work.
However, if after all of this it doesn’t work, my recommendation is that you purchase QuickBooks 2016. The best price I’ve found it legitimately is here.
I’m having problems with step 3. Do you think you could “dumb it down” for me. When I try to add a new device I get the message ” no devices found” . I don’t know how to proceed from here. Thanks
Roman, Happy to do it. I just updated the article with screen shots that should help. Enjoy!
Thanks! What a relief!
Such a nice simple walk through for non techies!
Thank you so much! Worked Great! Nice walk thru.
You Mr Turley are a genius. How you worked out what was happening I don’t know! All I DO KNOW is it worked a treat.
Many thanks
Joe,
Great job– I was actually using the “Print to PDF” software I had. This is much better having the good old QB save to PDF or Email feature back!
Thanks so much for sharing this.
Any experience with Sage TimeSlips 2014 in working with WIN10?
God Bless ~ Kevin
Hi Joseph
Just had the same problem with QuickBooks 2012 pro
QuickBooks customer service told me I would have to update to QuickBooks 2016.
Your fix worked a treat,
Thanks
thank you
trying to email invoices 11;00 saturday night , this happened before with 2011 but i couldn’t remember the fix , now with 2012.
THE THING THAT MAKES YOU MAD IS THIS WOULD BE EASY ENOUGH FOR QB TO PUT ON THE WEB SUPPORT PAGE?
ALL ABOUT A BUCK ,
thanks for taking the time to help others with this post , sunday is looking up!!!
Happy to have helped your weekend Joe. 🙂 Cheers.
Hi Mr. Joseph T.
You don’t imagine who many times i have tried to follow your steps. On computer matters I recognize that I am an idiot….but is urgent for me fix the problem w/ my quick-book. I had to go via CONTROL PANEL (Devices and printer) because I couldn’t find printer management program in my laptop (window 10) and to be honest I dont see the path.
You can do the steps, slightly different, through Control Panel as well. I’m in meetings all day and can’t detail that process, but others in the comments I believe have. Give them a shot.
QuickBooks 12 with windows 10. I had to go through the steps a couple times, but finally got it. Thank you so much for saving me 200 bucks today!
I use 2012 with W10 and having the same problem and also have tried but not working and getting the same message.
Do you just keep trying and is there something that I am not doing?
I have tried all of what you have suggested but it still will not email. It tries to save the file but still keeps coming up with the error message.
Jospeh Quickbooks 2012 outlook 2010 windows 10. Your original fix worked now it appears something has happened in a windows update to knock it out again and repeating the actions unfortunately do not work.
any thoughts?
You da man! I saw this fix posted another place but it wasn’t dumbed down enough for me. I followed this to a tee and we’re back in business. Thank you!
My additional 2 cents to add the direction to download the zip file into the windows system 32 file to begin with and then extract it there, not somewhere else and then try to move it. I’ve not done allot of this so it took me quite a few attempts before I finally figured that part out.
Sweet! Thanks for the feedback. Always makes the community stronger so we can help more people.
And if outlook really resists download Mozilla thunderbird which integrated fine when outlook wouldnt. You can either move to this in entirety or just sync the in and oubox only for quickbook purposes and use outlook otherwise as usual!!
This process worked for me. Thanks alot.
This worked perfectly. Thank you. Obviously QuickBooks just wants to sell a new version.
Joseph. My hard drive failed last week. Have a new one with windows 10 and now I need to reinstall QuickBooks 2012 Pro and they (QuickBooks) are telling me I need to upgrade. I know this is just a way to get more money from me and I refuse to do it. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Joe- Fantastic. This worked as advertised. Thanks for all the hard work to provide this solution. i appreciate it.
Charlie Brown
You rock – I had Win10 installed for a good 5 months and everything worked perfectly – then suddenly I was getting the error message.
The Quickbooks tool did not fix anything, and I was about at my wit’s end. For a couple of weeks the only ways I could send a client an invoice were to either 1. use “print preview”, take a screen shot, and clip it in photoshop then save as a pdf, or 2. print to paper, then scan to computer which saves as a pdf (usually a bit crooked and what a waste of time/ink).
Needless to say neither solution was smooth or graceful.
While I did not find a print manager shortcut, or any application by that name, I went to devices & printers, but to my dismay, there was no printer to delete.
I thought maybe the Quickbooks tool removed it?
So I tried adding the printer as instructed, and thanks to you providing the driver I downloaded that, added the folder to the path, and voila!
Opened QB and it’s able to “send invoice” through email as gracefully as before.
This was incredibly helpful – thank you very much for providing this solution.
Scott Z
Thanks for the great reply Scott! By the way, that hot sauce looks awesome. Great work.
Your solution worked for us, too!
Thank you very much for sharing.
Thanks Joseph – Your solution worked perfectly!
Mike
You are the man! bro
Unfortunately , this process didn’t work for me. I had windows 7, quickbooks 2011. I upgraded to windows 10, and was faced with the same error screen as the beginning of your screen shots. Did all of your steps, and still stuck with the same error.
I am going to restart my PC to see if this is why it’s not working. Logging out of quickbooks did not change anything for me
Stephen, just a couple of things to check. Did you install the driver that was attached to the article? You made sure that the Microsoft XPS printer has the right name and is using the right driver?
Yes, I used the link in the article to the correct driver. I am 99% sure that I am using the right driver, but how do I go back in and check now after the fact? or should I delete and try it again?
I deleted the xps document writer so I could try this process again, but now it won’t let me create the port XPS, or chose it from a list either. It says that it’s already there..
I am using 2011… maybe it is finally time to get 2015 (before 2016 comes out).
did you get this fixed? Have 2011 w/10 , same problem. Thanks
I have QB 2011 and Windows 10 and this worked for me on the first try. One point of confusion for me was that I couldn’t pull up Print Management, so I went to Devices and Printers. Click on add a printer. After the software searches click on “The printer I want wasn’t listed.” Choose the last option “Add a local printer with manual settings” and follow Joseph’s instructions from there.
Joseph,
Just wanted to thank you for posting that information. Took me a little flipping back and forth from your information screen to my Add computer screen but it was very straight forward and Worked the first time.
Thank you,
KC
Glad it helped someone! I was afraid that it only worked for me.
I cannot get past step 5, I have qb2011, I deleted xps printer from devices and printers control panel and then did all step by step up until step 5. I tried downloading drive through link you provided and cannot seem to make it work, a zip file gets saved to my downloads file and nothing appears under browse … please help
I called quickbooks and their only options were to upgrade AND pay $599.99 for 1 year tech support… I can’t believe that’s their solution. Anyone who has same issue, would appreciate any help 🙁
I’m in the same boat ‘cept with QB 2010. file is zip and can’t download. plugging away …………………….
For those of you downloading and not finding anything, two thoughts. 1. Check your downloads folder. 2. Shut off your anti-virus while downloading it. I don’t know why it would be rejected, but it may be rejecting the download.
I just upgraded with Windows 10 from 7 and am still using Quickbooks 2011. I had to go through the steps twice for some reason, but worked like a charm. Thanks for the help, you’ve saved me quite a bit of money on an upgrade that I otherwise don’t need.
Hi, i’m brazilian, and i’m don’t writ in english very well, so sorry about this. I upgraded to windows 10 and in the Microsoft Printe To PDF, apears in the Properties/Port/ Microsoft Printe To PDF that it’s send to “One Note”. There’s how to send to other place like some folder ? Thanks.
This did not work for me,
I get all the way to the end than get an error message
“Printer driver was not installed. The system cannot find the file specified.
I pointed right to it in the fold and it found it??”
I even copied and pasted the link to the folder?
I see all 5 files from the link provided.
I just noticed something else when loading the drive it states “Completing the network printer installation wizard” I selected local ?
Running windows 10 and QB 2012
Not sure what happened but it worked. I think it was my 4-5 try.
All good thanks for all your help.
Doug, glad to hear it! It took a bit of fiddling around for me to get it right as well.
Thank you. Worked like a charm.
It worked! Thank you for the info, saved me a lot of time. My version of Windows 10 was a little different – I went in through All Settings and some of the steps looked different (as you had said they might in your post), but I was able to thread my way through.
Joseph – Thanks much for sharing these steps. Your solution to this problem is much better than Intuit’s: ‘Upgrade to QB 2015’. Naturally.
I’ve gone through the steps a couple of times. On my second pass, on Step 3, I get a message ‘Port XPS already exists’ (presumably left over from my first attempt, which was not successful.
Should I delete ports XPS and start again? How do I delete Port XPS?
Also, I was not able to locate the Print Management desktop app so am doing this a different way. How do I start the Print Management app, or is that an add-on?
Thanks so much!
David
Great questions David.
If you’ve already created the XPS port and you’ve done it correctly, you can just skip that step and select your XPS port as appropriate.
As for Print Management, it should be built in to Windows 10 by default. I haven’t confirmed but it may be a Professional edition option only. To find it, just press start and type “Print Management”. If that doesn’t work, you can also do it through the Devices and Printers dialogue.
Joseph – Sorry for belated reply to your comment. I didn’t receive your comment via e-mail, as I had expected, so didn’t know about it until I decided to check your website again.
First, thank you for your generosity in sharing your expertise with others in this forum. Much obliged.
The bad news: The fix did not work for me. After applying it (several times), I continued to receive the “QB could not save your report as a PDF file” message when trying to create a PDF using the File / Save as PDF option.
The good news: When I select the File / Print Report option, and select the printer ‘Microsoft Print to PDF’, it works perfectly. I’m not sure if that option was there all along, or if that was added as a by-product of your fix. Doesn’t matter – I’m in business! (for now…)
Thanks again,
David
Thanks for the feedback David and glad you got it working (for now!). This QuickBooks dance is always frustrating. I thought I’d seen every problem in the book until I found a new one yesterday that took 3 hours to resolve. So it goes…
You need a minimum of qb13 to run error free on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. These steps may fix printing but you are not able to open up internal Web browsing functions or email invoices/pay stubs on anything less then qb13
I am able to email invoices on QB 2011 after running this fix.
Hi Josef
What a pleasure for that concise and successful solution after hours of Googling and fiddling with my QB 2012 and new Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade.
I did need to download the drivers, but got them installed and working with QB in minutes.
You are a STAR
Cheers
Chris
Worked for me…Thank you!
Hi Joseph,
worked for me too..
just want to say thank you for your amazing advise!!!
you are a big saver!!!
Many thanks again!
Happy to help! Glad it’s making a difference for people.
Thank you!!!!!!
Awesome fix Joseph! You did a great job and it worked perfectly for me. I was skiddish to use your WPS driver files. But my AV didn’t squak and it went fine.
Thanks for sharing!
I can appreciate being leery of the download for sure. I was as well when I downloaded it but seems to have been great so far!
Worked for me too.
Thank you so much for the quick fix!
I can’t print or email from QB 2012 after upgrading to Windows 10. My error message is: “Quickbooks can’t complete the current action due to a missing component”
I called Quickbooks/Intuit and was told that Windows 10 is not compatible and that I must upgrade to the 2015 version.
I deleted and installed the printer as per your instructions but it still does not work. Any other ideas?
Thanks.
Andy, from my experience, what QuickBooks is referring to here is one of the components of the core QuickBooks program itself. I’d reinstall it and then follow the steps in my blog post to correct any printing issues. Also, make sure you’re running the latest patch level for QuickBooks.
Tried similar fix with W8 and could not get it to work so don’t know if I should chance the W10 upgrade. I am still using QB 2008 😉
Only use it for VAT and invoicing so 2008 version does all I want . Maybe sticking with W7 on one machine is a good idea anyway until everything is ironed out.
Charlie, let’s face it. You just need to buy the latest version of QuickBooks. 🙂 That would probably solve a lot of problems!
Excellent Fix worked in the first try , thank you !!
There is a very special place in the world for people like you Joseph! I followed the prompts – used your link to get the download, learned form the other users mistakes and problems above and Walla!!! All working perfectly. Sent my invoices and the world suddenly seems brighter and warmer and I am going to make myself a cup of coffee and just smile. THANK YOU!
Thanks Lyn! It’s the beauty of community. People helping people with every day things. It’s why we’re here!
That worked great. Thank you. I am using Quickbooks 2011 and Window 10.
thanks got it to work!
it didnt work the first time, but when i did it the 2nd time it worked
when i got the error mess that XPS already existes i just renamed it XPS2
and its working fine for me
Thank you so much Joseph. This worked perfectly. I went from utter dismay to happiness and delight within a few minutes!
Thank you, it worked for me after removing the new windows 10 xps printer and old pdf complete printer because it added Windows XPS Document Printer (Copy 1) so i renamed after i removed the first XPS printer
Thanks for sharing your solution. I am trying to follow it step by step. Under Devices & Printers I can’t find a way to add a printer. A box opens up but it searches for a printer. I don’t see a way to add the driver. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I can’t do my billing!
Judith, there are a couple of ways to just add a driver. If you click on any existing printer, an option should show up in the menu bar above for Print server properties. That has an option to add a driver. Otherwise, when you click add printer like you mentioned and it does a scan and doesn’t find anything, you then click The printer that I want isn’t listed and then click Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings and then follow the instructions in this article about adding a port and driver.
It worked :O)
Thanks a big bunch !
IT Worked….
Love ya Man……!!!!
you are a genius!!
WORKED LIKE A CHARM. The pictures helped but my system was totally different steps, yet the labels of things helped.
Just tried to reinstall the driver from the download you provide but it is not compatible with 32bit operating system. Is there a way I can download a 32 bit version?
I tried to install the driver by selecting the options already there but it did not fix quickbooks.
Any help is appreciated.
Sorry, I don’t have a 32-bit version and can’t seem to find one oddly enough…
This worked perfectly for me – thank you! Running Windows 10 and Quickbooks 2011.
Nice! Glad to hear it works with other QuickBooks versions as well.
I’m using QuickBooks Enterprise 2012 with Windows 10 and this fixed my problem, thanks a lot!
I had to create the new port name as “XPS2” because even though I deleted the XPS printer, Windows would not let me use “XPS” as the name (already in use).
Thank you so much! Worked perfectly using QB Pro 2012.
Joseph! Thank you so much man! …It took me a few tries and I had to d/l the drivers you supplied even though I found that file already on my computer. There were a few extra steps to go through for the non pro version of W10.
Are there or do you expect any complications by making these changes to the xps document writer?
Thank you again!
Took a few tries, but finally got it fixed. Thanks so much for your post and getting my pdf generator in Quickbooks 2012 working again.
Worked for me the first time. Bless you.
I so appreciate the information from you, Joseph, even though it didn’t work for my Windows 10 – Quickbooks Pro 2011 combination. After loads of frustration and thinking if other could do it so could it, I have success! Not exactly like it was supposed to work, but this works, too. In Quickbooks, I asked my invoice to print with the printer “Microsoft Print to PDF on PORTPROMPT:”, which was in my printer selections. I then asked it to save on my desktop as “invoice.pdf” and to my utter amazement, it was there as a PFD file! I don’t know if this would have worked before I completed Joseph’s steps, but it’s there for me now. Hope this helps some of you.
Brilliant! Thank you Dorothy! You have turned my frown upside down!
Kelly
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
You are a hero! Works perfectly.
YES!!! Thank you so much for doing this! I work for a small nonprofit that uses QB 2012 and I send most of our receipts as PDFs so this was a serious problem when I upgraded to Windows 10.
For some reason I couldn’t right-click and add a new printer in Print Management, but I was able to use your directions to do it in Settings.
i couldn’t even find the
Print Management Program
my computer says – no results
tried going into devices and nothing in there
help please
Alan, You can do roughly the same thing in the Devices and Printers system on your computer as well, which you will definitely have. Give that a shot and see if you can see similar options.
Alan, maybe you can do what I did. When you ask a document to print in Quickbooks, in your printer name drop down list, do you have a printer offered from Microsoft, called “Microsoft Print to PDF on PORTPROMPT” or some PDF printer offered? Use that. This works for me to save it as a PDF file.
Dorothy…I too discovered the “Microsoft Print to PDF on PORTPROMPT”! Couldn’t believe it worked! I was ready to give up.
Joseph,
Thanks so much for posting this. I followed your instructions and it solved my issue of being able to send statements using Quickbooks. I had just updated to Windows 10 and this not working was extremely frustrating. Thanks for the sunshine.
Chris
My pleasure Chris. Enjoy a better Sunday from it!
Trying to make Quickbooks 2008 make PDFs in Windows 10. It worked! I had 2 general computer ignorance issues. First I downloaded the driver like described, I did this because the drivers in my windows seemed to have suffixes after the .inf so I did not want to use them. After I unzipped the folder I separated out the prnms001.inf and put it all by itself on the desktop. Don’t do this, it caused the installation to fail. After the failed installation, the XPS port had been created, so when I tried to create it again, the computer said the port was already there. So I pressed “use an existing port” and found it listed. I installed the driver from the unzipped folder to the pre-created port and all works well. Thanks.
I’m having issues with our employees (including myself) not being able to download or open the paystubs that are in pdf. We can send estimates and invoices with no problems. Just the paystubs creating an issue. Any ideas?
This worked like a charm for me on Quickbooks 2011 Nonprofit Edition. Thanks a lot!
Thanks Joseph!! Been pulling my hair out for a week, this worked great!
I downloaded the xps driver through the link you provided but a message comes up stating it doesn’t work with my version of windows and that I must make sure it is 32 bit compatible . Is the driver 64 bit on youre link??
Please Help
Thank you.
Ric
Ric, yes, that’s the 64-bit driver. To be honest I hadn’t realized a 32-bit version of Windows 10 even existed. I don’t have a 32-bit version. Sorry!
One more thing. I don’t “save to pdf” in Quickbooks, instead I “print” using the new pdf printer converter.
Thanks for sharing your experience Roger!
It worked! Thank you! I was running QB 11 Premier on Windows 7. After I upgraded to Windows 10 I lost the pdf function and saw the errors you show above. I had almost given up hope and was a day away from reluctantly buying QB 2015. Thanks again.
Hi, for some reason I can’t use the link that you provided for driver download. It sais this: We are sorry, but you do not have access to this service. Please contact your domain administrator to access. Could you re-upload it or help me out some other way?
I just added an alternative download link in the article above. Check that out and see if that works for you.
It works perfectly. Thank you very much!
Cool! Happy to be of service.
Josh-
Thanks for the tip, worked great-
Thank you for putting this out there for us. Saved me a lot of extra work.
You’re welcome Daniel!
Hi Josh,
I tried this but now seem to have completely lost microsoft xps.. I can’t download it from your link as it goes to a zipped file and when I follow your steps I get right to the end and when it says install printer then a message comes up and says “printer driver not installed unable to find a core driver package that is required by the printer driver package”
Thoughts?
Shannon,
If you’re trying to install the XPS driver from the download, you will need to extract the files out of the Zip file. Then your computer should be able to install them.
ok, file is no longer zipped but I still get the same message when trying to “install printer”
When you are asked to add the printer driver, you will have to click through the folders in that file until you find a .inf file. It should be the only one that shows up. This may not work if your computer is running 32-bit windows instead of 64-bit as this driver is the 64-bit version.
WORKED PERFECT!!
how do i open/find the print management?
If you aren’t on the professional version of windows, you may not have the Print Management screen. If this is the case, try the Devices and Printers screen. Once there, select a printer and the menu up above has a Print server Properties screen which is similar.
Hi Joseph
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this – Although I couldn’t find the Print Management app, I managed to follow this and it was successful!
I still have issues with QB2012 and Outlook 2013 changing pdf’s to windat files when sending to certain PC’s and especially MAC’s. If you have any advice on this it would be gratefully recieved!
Many thanks again!
Mark
Mark,
Typically, if you’re getting windir.dat files, you’re using Outlook to send the invoices. If this is the case, you’ll want to play with your outlook options for sending messages in Rich text (not plain text) and make sure you have the latest updates installed for Outlook and QuickBooks. Give that a shot.
Hi Joseph, Just wanted to say thanks for this. Had just been researching upgrades assuming I wouldn’t be able to figure it out. Thought I’d search one last time for a solution and found yours. 5 mins later and I’m back up and running. Truly grateful! J
Awesome Johnny! It’s stories like that that make taking the time to write an article worth doing. 🙂
Thank you so much Joseph, it has worked for saving and printing invoices. I can now send the invoice via email but somehow the email it gets attached to is illegible. Do you have a fix for this too please? I am using Outlook Office 365.
Thank you so much. Went to run statements today, which I do from out of the US, using email and BOOM, big problem! I am so tired of QB crippling their past customers by not allowing upgrades. I was about to again be FORCED to buy their newer product just to fix 1 small issue. THANK YOU for taking the time to post the fix.
It worked for me Thanks !!! Currently using QB2011, and recently upgraded to Win10. I already had the driver in my download folder probably from upgrading to this Laptop two years ago, and the first time using QB on Win8.
Every other step worked well. Even on QB 2011
Thanks
Beautiful! works perfect. Great, easy to follow instructions
Thanks so much for posting! Very helpful!!!!
Thank you! Thank you! just added upgraded to Windows10 with my QB2011 and now I can email my invoices again. You’re a time saver and a blessing, thank you!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Running Win10 and 2012 Pro. Your fix worked Perfectly.
Help yourself to $20 out of petty cash, and tell your boss to give you a raise! lol
-JD
I have to admit that comment made me laugh. 🙂
Worked perfectly on Windows 10 & Quickbooks 2011! Thanks a bunch.
Absolute genius, Joseph.
I’ve struggled with this for days and days.
Using QB2012 Pro, Windows 10 and a TEMP directory on a Ramdisk (A:).
So many things could go wrong and yet your solution seems to work a treat – well done!
Awesome. Glad to hear it.
Works 🙂 Thank you so much.
Dear Joseph.
I have done everything according to your explanation but after the download I cannot pick up the prnms001 file. It tells me the correct drivers are not available for my device. HP Probook 4525s
Can you please assist
Gysbert, The only reason I can think of that it wouldn’t work is that you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows 10. Is that correct? Unfortunately I don’t have a 32-bit version of the driver available. Sorry!
Thank you Joseph for your time. Best regards
Thank you! I also just upgraded to Windows 10 with my QB 2011 and now I can email invoices again. Only had one frustration…I eventually realized I had to extract the compressed download.
Joseph,
Thank you so much. I was just about to upgrade QB when I came across your posting. I had to do things a little different, but I was able to make it work. Great job !!!
Has anyone had any luck getting pdf’s from Quickbooks 2015 Pro on Windows 10? Can’t save as pdf or email an invoice and have deleted and recreated the XPS printer numerous times. Also have run the new Printer and PDF Repair program which supports Win 10. No luck.
I do not have a print management window option, but in devices and printers I was able to remove the MS driver, then go about adding a new printer in the manner like above. However, there was always a port named XPS, and I could never get rid of it, so I added to it.
Now, Quickbook appends the name of pdf attached to invoices with the process number it has listed in the Task Manager to the end of the name. I can not get rid of this. I am running ONLY ONE instance on QB. Other support articles say to end other instances. I am already there. Any ideas on thiis
Wow it worked! Had a little trouble with downloading the driver in that I could access it (Step 6 and 7) However I noticed I needed to set the printer manufacturer to Microsoft and then in the list the diver was there. Chose it and all worked. Brilliant ! Thanks again. This really solved my quickbooks pdf printing issue
Simon
Glad to have helped everyone!
You saved my bacon. This applied also to Quickbooks Pro 2011 which we didn’t want to upgrade yet. My wife thanks you. I thank you.
My pleasure Rob!
You da man. Saved someone $500 with this fix. Someone is smiling down on you today.
Awesome. I like helping people save money, especially when it would otherwise go to someone like Intuit. 🙂
I can’t thank you enough Joe ! I’m always leery of the somewhat forced upgrades, just another way these companies can squeeze you. I to have quickbooks 2012, this was a huge help
Many thanks. Might hold off on upgrading for a little while! 🙂
Thank you!!! I was getting really frustrated.
Thank you. It worked.
Hi There
Thanks, worked brilliantly , could not call port xps so called it XPS2 and it has all worked!!!
ps just bought Quickbooks 2016 for £50 on Amazon!!!
Thank YOUUU sooooo much! You saved me money and lots more frustration! Many Many thanks!
Worked great though I already had a XPS (Local) port on my Windows 10. Selected it and followed the instructions above and QB 2012 now generates and attaches PDFs again. Thank you!
Hi Jospeh, thank you very much. It saved me from a lot of headache and stress like what I had when Windows upgraded to Windows 7. Once again thanks for sharing this knowledge.
You just saved me hours of frustration!
A big THANK YOU.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!! It worked!!!!! I spent hours trying things last weekend when I had installed Windows 10. It was so frustrating. I wish I had seen your article first.
Thank you again!
thanks for sharing this, very useful info!
TOTALLY WORKED!
I run QB PRO PLUS 2016
Super frustrated I couldn’t save PDF’s.
This is the first blog to have supplied a solid answer!
Simple easy to follow steps!!!
Thanks Joseph!
Happy to help Randy! Love helping fellow Entrepreneurs save money and keep fighting the good fight.
I bought a new computer with windows 10 already on it and I am having the same problem. Your instructions are not helping me as I can not figure out what to do as my problem is slightly different
Bryan, maybe you can explain your problem and the community can offer some suggestions.
I’m sorry for the off-topic interruption however I’m having a crisis our company will be open in a couple hours and I updated my Windows software to windows 10 after doing such I have lost all QuickBooks documentation the program however icon is still there and when I search through my files I find it as well however when I go to open the program it will not allow me to do such the only option it gives me is re-creating a company what do I do ?!
Melissa, not sure if you found an answer to your question yet, but it sounds as though you may have a new profile and your Quickbooks file may be located in your old profile. Intuit does a VERY annoying thing in placing the default QuickBooks file location in a public profile location that is easily missed by backup software, IT professionals, etc. You’ll want to look for it somewhere in C:\Users\Public\Documents as a start. Hope that helps!
I appreciate your response I’ve been up all night trying to find a solution!!
However have failed immensely ! I upgraded Windows software to windows 10 on my desktop when I click QuickBooks the company has vanished. The screen that appears when quickbook is opened ( from shortcut on desk top ) is start a new company or open an existing one. However when I take the steps for open existing company ( from backup file) the next message is company file exists. Then error message appears.
* I’ve tried few different help solutions such as
reboot.bet
Sign in as administrator
Restarting computer after update
Restoring quick books
And nothing’s worked.
I’m sure there’s a simple solution I’m unaware of and need someone of your skill to assist me. Please if your able to help me id be beyond greatful.
Thank you for your time as well.
Step 1: Search the C: drive for .qbw files — QuickBooks Work files. Step 2: Once you see the one that you believe is the correct file double click it and QB Desktop should open that file. Step 3: If it doesn’t come up it could be on another drive such as D: so scan those like you did for C:. Step 4: If it still doesn’t come up it is no longer on your machine. Repeated the earlier steps looking for .qbb — QuickBooks Backup files. Step 5: Look for files on other non-connected hard drives and/or computers in the same manner. To open these files may require copying them to the computer where QB Desktop is installed.
Good luck.
You are BRILLIANT!!!!!! Thank you!!!
Thank you so much for posting this resolution with the download files!!!
Wow!
Works perfect. Thank You!
I have tried this and actually it has worked on this laptop before and i just did it on my desktop pc no problem. But for some feason on my laptop it keeps telling me the XPS port is in use when all i have is my printer. No other ports being used. I have never had this problem, and I HAVE to get these invoices out ASAP
Thank YOU! You are my hero!!!!!!!!
I’m always the one that has to fix computer issues for the family. This is the first time I found the answer right away and it worked flawlessly. Thank you so so much!
Tips for others…I followed to a T what was in your instructions. Used print manager as stated instead of control panel…just followed everything. Also for others info, I am using quick books accountant 2011. Maybe a helpful suggestion for people having any issues, if you are deleting anything and attempting to start over try restarting the computer before new attempts. I was lucky and it worked instantly and I didn’t have to restart at all but that may help some.
Great work, Joseph. This fix worked perfectly
YOU SIR ARE A LEGEND!!!!!
Thank you for a solid solution that hopefully will stay put. I have used QB since 1995 but I have found that in the last 5 years, things have become more unstable and things like not being able to print to PDF keep popping up. Thanks for helping from the outside!
We have found that on multiple workstations with the latest Windows 10 Build 1511 update, this solution no longer works when you goto “send” an invoice. The email may come up, but there is no attachment. Any insight would be great…
Was fiddling around for a while. Thank you for the clear, concise explanation!
Just followed Joseph’s advice and it worked straight away. Many thanks for the solution it has saved me from paying out for a quickbooks update and no doubt hours of wasted time !!!
Thank You Joseph! This worked perfectly. Some of the settings are much harder to find in Win10, but once I found them and used your step by step procedure, everything to with emailing PDF invoices in QB2012 works again in WIN10.
Thank you so much ! had to go through devices and printers so steps were slightly different but got there in the end.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share this fix. It worked like a charm.
I’m using QBD Accountant 2013 and it worked great on the first try.
Had the problem immediately after upgrade to Windows 10. Thanks so much.
immpressive info and followed hoping email might be fixed in quickbooks but no luck. i can print but faxing and emails since upgrade is issue, if you hear of any revelations please advise.
thanks
Thank you. Worked a treat.
Any chance you can save me hours of searching and give a fix for excel export option being greyed out. Can only export to csv.
QB Pro 2012, Windows 10, Office 2013
Thank you very, very much. Never was able to find “Printer Management”, but I managed. Cheers.
This worked PERFECTLY! Thank you so much. I was about ready to pull my hair out (or buy another copy of Quickbooks). I’m not sure which one would be worse ^_^. Thanks x a million.
Windows 10 updated version works fine this your solution…
But Windows 10 solid version comes with computer does not have “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, I think newer version “Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4” driver is available and QuickBooks pdf is not working.
Do you have any solutions…..
Thank you soooooo much for this fix — it works in QB 2016 as long as you delete the XPS port too, then reinstall the driver and name a “new” port XPS. I can’t thank you enough. Trying to have Intuit help fix this was a JOKE!
Yea, I don’t think it’s in Intuit’s best interest to help you fix it when they can make hundreds off getting people to upgrade. 🙂 Which is why I made the post. It’s shameful of them.
I went through all of the steps, and it gives me the error message still, and also a new one that says “QuickBooks can’t complete the current action due to a missing component.” when I try to email an invoice.
🙁 So frustrating
I have QB 2012 on windows 10.
Thanks so much for your guidance! I am knowledgeable enough with computers to be dangerous, and thankfully I’m also knowledgeable enough to know WHEN I’m about to be dangerous, but I reach my limit distressingly quickly. So I absolutely need clear, step-by-step guidance like that which you provided.
I wasn’t able to follow your instructions exactly (e.g. I couldn’t locate a “Print Management program”) but your clarity enabled me to locate everything I needed on my system, and to apply your fix. Our QuickBooks “PDF-erizes” once more!
Hi Mark,
I have the same issue where on Win 10 Home there is no Print Management tool. You mentioned that you were able to overcome this and proceed with the other steps. Can you explain how you did it?
Hi Jan – I’ll do my best to remember/recreate the steps I followed…
Joseph’s Step 1: Open the Print Management program (you can do something similar in Devices and Printers but the steps will be slightly different)
– From the Start menu, I chose Settings, then Devices, then scrolled to the bottom and clicked on “Device Manager”. I can also access the Device Manager from the Control Panel, which (if yours is organized by category, as mine is) can be found in the category “Hardware and Sound”, under “Devices and Printers”.
Joseph’s Step 2: Delete the Microsoft XPS Document Writer
– His screen shot shows him accessing this via the “Printers” category. I do have that category in my Device Manager, however MY Microsoft XPS Document Writer is located in “Print queues”. When right-clicking on the XPS Document Writer, instead of a “delete” option I get an “uninstall” option…that did the job.
Joseph’s Step 3: Add a new printer using the following steps
1. Right click in the white space below the printers and choose Add Printer
– Right clicking “in the white space below the printers” must be a Print Management Desktop App function, because I can’t do that in my Document Manager. So instead I went back to Start menu -> Settings -> Devices and clicked on “Add a printer or scanner” , then immediately on “The printer that I want isn’t listed”; I didn’t bother to wait for the system to finish searching.
2. Choose Create a new port and add a new printer and select Local Port
– I chose “Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings”, clicked on “Next”, chose “Create a new port” and for “Type of port” I chose “Local Port”, then clicked on “Next”.
3. Name the port XPS
– Everything was pretty straight-forward from this point on. Except that finding the location of my previously downloaded “new Microsoft XPS Document Writer driver” was (for some reason) intensely gruelling…I found it at one point, mistakenly closed the window, and then tried searching for it a second time but Windows was taking FOREVER to find it again, so I abandoned that search and simply downloaded the first of Joseph’s suggestions to my desktop, where it was easy to find.
I hope this works for you Jan. Good luck, and please do reply to me on this site so I know if my reply helped you at all.
And once again…THANK YOU JOSEPH TURLEY!!
Mark, thanks for adding some more details for everyone!
Hi,
I’ve got QB2012 and just upgraded to windows 10. I got printing following your instructions ( many thanks for that), but getting the same messages when emailing statements and estimates? Any fixes for that?
I have quick books 2015 and I updated all the drivers/cleaned up my pc and I could not figure out this issue for days! So glad to have come across this, it fixed my problem! Thanks again so much.
That did it! So frustrating and that worked as directed. (QB 2012, windows 10)
I am also using QB2012 and W10 and I also tried the steps over and over again but still didn’t work.
It finally worked!!!! I didn’t use the driver that was published by Joseph instead I used the printer driver selected in the printer selection dialog.
Thanks!
What is the actual driver you used. I am struggling with this as well.
Hi Joseph, you sound like you certainly are a wizard.
I have had to totally wipe my Macbook and reinstall everything. The Macbook part was easy but I ended up having to download Windows 10 to use with Parallels Desktop which I use for Quickbooks 2014 (the multi currency version does not work on a Mac). Is there any difference in what to do from within Parallels to get this sorted. Windows 10 is quite unfamiliar to me and I do not know if it looks or behaves differently with Parallels v’s a PC. I am unable to email invoices or other docs from Quickbooks since I did this.
Many thanks for any help you may be able to offer.
Eilis
AWESOME ! AND I WAS ABLE TO DO IT MYSELF !
Happy to help everyone.
Worked like a charm !! Thank u.
Hi Joseph, I am super glad I ran into your website resolving the printing issue. It completely worked for me. Thank you SO MUCH!
Awesome! Glad to have helped.
Thank you so much!!! This has been driving me bananas.
Hi Joseph, I am using QB2010 Pro. Do you know anyone who has tried your fix with the 2010 version. I am using Win 7 and have not upgraded to 10 yet.
Thank you…spent hours working on this and this worked in 5 minutes
I get to step 2(Choose Create a new port and add a new printer and select Local Port) and can not find any information you have posted. Please help. I have always been able to send invoices. Not sure what happened in the last 2 days that changed that through quickbooks 2013
Looks through the comments of this post and you should find steps that will match up to your computer.
i found this
2. Choose Create a new port and add a new printer and select Local Port
– I chose “Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings”, clicked on “Next”, chose “Create a new port” and for “Type of port” I chose “Local Port”, then clicked on “Next”.
however I do not have an option for it
Saved me! Thank you!
You are a Godsend.
Thanks
Thank you, thank you and thank you. The best resolution that was easy to follow. You are THE MAN!!!
Elle
Hi Joseph
I have been trying for many many hours searching for help to sought out the problem of emailing from quick books using windows live mail when i updated my computer to windows 10 and wondered if i needed to go back to windows 7.
I found your help site, followed your instruction and within a couple of minutes i was up and running again. Thanks heap…
Carolyn
Glad to have helped! It’s always nice to save yourself from having to buy new software when you don’t really need to.
Thank you so much for this! I’ve got QB trying to send me a quote for an upgrade as they say they are not compatible with Windows 10 without an upgrade of QB!
Worked a treat!
thank you so much! i am a bookkeeper and have one client that has not upgraded QBs. i have no problems when i’m working at his office but when i work on my computer at home, (Windows 10, QB13, QB14, QB15 & QB16!), i’ve been struggling. SO much happier now! thanks again!
Thank you!!! Worked like a charm.
Thank you for the tutorial.
My install did not follow your steps, but it got me going in the right direction.
This worked great for 2013 premier contractor edition as well. I did not have a print management app but was able to figure out how to complete from the control panel.
Thanks so much!
Worked perfectly. Thank You.
It worked! Saved my behind. Thanks!
THANK YOU! 🙂
QuickBooks Won’t Email Estimates after Windows 10 Upgrade
Thank you, Joseph. I had just updated to Windows 10 and could no longer email pdf from QuickBooks 2012. Searched the web for 2 days. Nothing worked till I found your post. I’m back in business.
Yeah buddy… works great. Thank you!
Joseph,
THANK YOU so much for the detailed instruction! This really saved my life.
Great job!
Thanks!
Willy
Sweet! Glad it worked for you.
JOSEPH; I cannot thank you enough for the advise. Understandably, everyone interperets what they read just a Little bit differently and sometimes the symantics of the industry is not quite what it should be; but with a bit of NOT WANTING TO GIVE UP and a bit of an attitude, I was able to get it. Thank you for the info. It would have taken me hours and a whole lot of paper to accomplish what you permitted me to do in perhaps 20 or 30 Minutes.
Thanks again.
Jim
Jim, I’m so glad you were able to get it working with help from my blog post and even more so that you would take the time to pass on the thanks. Much appreciated!
Thank you so much. Your instructions worked perfectly!
You the Man!
Thank you very much!
You saved me!!! I have been searching endlessly for the past two days trying to create a pdf since doing the Windows 10 update. Your step by step instructions were spot on and took me all of three minutes to do! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Fantastic! Glad people are having their days saved by this post.
Thank you. It worked!!! You saved me.
Yes! Yes! Yes! This has been a near nightmare. The frustration of taking 4x longer to send estimates and invoices is finally over!! Thank you!
Great to hear! Glad it worked for you.
YOU ARE AWESOME! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!
Thank you for posting this solution. It worked!
Back in business! Thanks a million. Definately a life saver.
Sadly tried and tried again with no luck . Not sure why. Have Windows 10, Might have to spend the dough after all. Is there some new trick?
Thank you so much! I have never done anything like this before and was totally intimidated. Your instructions were fantastic! Thank you for being a blessing!
Thanks for letting me know Vince. On a day like today, it really helps me to know I’ve blessed someone’s life. Best of luck in your work.
HELLO. IT WORKS FOR ME. HOWEVER SOME REPORTS SAVES AS “INTUIT_QBOB_INTERNAL” AND CANNOT OPEN IT.
DO YOU KNOW WHY IT HAPPENS? PLEASE HELP !
THANKS
Sorry, I’m not sure why that would happen. Anyone else have any ideas?
Thank you so much. You’re a miracle worker!
I want to upgrade my wife’s Lenovo to windows 10, but it is a 32 bit machine with Windows 7 and QB Pro 2013. Does that mean I will not be able to do that as the provided driver is for 64 bit? Any suggestions please? What must I search on the internet for?
Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it.
Johan, the first thing I would point out is that if you’re going to Windows 10, you really should install Windows 10 64-bit (I didn’t even know 32-bit was an option, though I guess with upgrading there might have to be). It’s really intended to be 64-bit at this point and then the solution I’ve posted should work. I’m unsure how this works with 32-bit I’m afraid, though I believe someone in the comments figured it out. Have a look there.
On May 16, 2016 this fixed my xps problem with QB 2016 Pro in Windows 10.
Back in 2004 it seems like QB had this problem in Windows XP, too! If I remember correctly the same solution worked then, too.
That would NOT surprise me!
Something that I was failing on was to Extract the Microsoft file, and then using the file inside of it.
Initially I just copied that file onto my hard driver.
Just may help someone.
Worked like a charm. You Mr.Joseph, are the man! Thank you so much!
Thanks for sharing with the community, and I’m happy to have been of service!
Thank you for coming up with this workaround for QB 2012! This solution works for me for about a month and then I have to redo the XPS driver. It’s really easy to redo, but do you have any insight on why it’s only working for me about month before I have to redo it?
Thanks – Kirk
Unfortunately I don’t. I haven’t experience or seen that problem yet. If you do find an answer though, we’d love it if you came back and shared with the group!
Many thanks. I have been struggling for a couple of hours to get this problem sorted….
I needed to add one more step in order to resolve my issue and that was to go into the Security tab in Printer Properties and make sure Allow was checked for “Everyone”. Otherwise, this resolved my issue perfectly, thank you for the write up.
have Quickbooks 2009. just upgraded from Win 7 to win 10 .. not working for me?
I needed to add one more step in order to resolve my issue and that was to go into the Security tab in Printer Properties and make sure Allow was checked for “Everyone”.
Worked well for me! I am running Quickbooks Pro 2011 on windows 10.
Thanks for your help!
Thank you! But no luck for me so far!!
You are a life saver. WONDERFUL!!! Thank you.
I bought a computer with windows 8, and upgraded to 10 shortly after. I am using QuickBooks Enterprise 16. Since they did the upgrade to QB with the extra security added just this month, every time I try to open an invoice, sales order, estimate, purchase order and the help screen QB freezes up. The panel on the right side of the invoice (or anything with the panel) that shows the summary for the transaction, it shows loading and is completely frozen. The only way to close the QB window is with the task manager.
When I open the task manager it shows that QB is not responding. Can you help me with this issue?
Unfortunately, that’s not a problem I am familiar with. Sorry, I can’t help! 🙁
Thanks anyway, apparently QB doesn’t know either.
Joseph, will this work for Quickbooks 2010 – 11 and Windows 10? My computer just upgraded to Windows 10 and I can’t send (email) my invoices. Thanks, Michelle
Michelle, there’s a good chance that it will. Most problems with Quickbooks and printing PDF’s are related to this in some way. Give it a shot.
Hi Michelle, did you manage to get it to work? I’m using 2010 but it didn’t for me, so hoping you might have had better luck!
FYI: buying qb 2016 does NOT fix the problem. One would think they’d make it easy to fix this problem, or license the pdf driver from Adobe or let you choose to use it instead for creating forms to send via email (this feature also sucks), but NO! Thanks for your how-to — will apply it & keep my fingers crossed!
AWESOME! Thanks for the step by step..big help!
This worked for me. Thank you very much
Well, though your solution SHOULD have worked, all the steps worked and your step-by-step was easy to follow — but it doesn’t — at least not for me on Windows Pro 10/QB 2016, latest Win 10 update. I went through all of the steps several times but it kept telling me the XPS driver file was missing stuff. Still pulling my hair out. Oh well, who needs hair in the summer?
This solved the problem. Thank you for making this available.
Thank you so very much! Worked flawlessly! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
This worked great. I couldn’t find the print manager, but I just went through printers and devices. Thank you so much, it is greatly appreciated.
That worked perfectly – thank you very much, greatly appreciated.
Genius!
you the mannnnn…. worked on my end premierm 2012 on windows 10..
thank you much, god bless.
Thanks very much!! Worked great. Actually for me (QB Pro 2011 & new windows 10), just Uninstalling the WINDOWS XPS document Writer from “printer Queues” did the trick..
I could not find “add a printer” in this windows 10 jungle, but re-tried me QB invoicing and it worked..
Thanks for the help!!!
Fantastic! Worked like a charm on QB Pro 2011 on Windows 10. The steps were a little different/tricky since I’m not entirely familiar with Windows 10, but so glad I found this. Thank you!
Thanks so much! Great instructions and it worked for QB 2011.
Thank you so much!!!! You rock!!
Mr Joseph,,,you are magnificent!
I spent 3 hours looking for a solution with PDF problem on QB. Oooooooooof course, I had downloaded Windows 10 and things went south! I waited a day before seeking you out and then, BAM! You came with a blink. It worked, first try and QB folks hadn’t a clue! Da Best You are! Appreciate you!
Thanks Christine! Always makes me smile a little bigger to hear things like that. Glad to have helped your day along.
It worked awesome, gotta admit it took me longer than 5 minutes. However that was mostly my fault. Take your time and scroll down to read complete next step before jumping ahead Thank you Joe for saving me $200. You be the MAN!
Awesome man, happy it saved some hard earned cash.
This did not work with Quickbooks 2011-12 / Windows 7 x64 Bit.
Well done with this post. Some steps were slightly different on my windows 10 install (or rather I did each step sometimes via a slightly different route) but I followed each step and was frankly amazed to find it worked first time. Thanks for posting this, very helpful (unlike quickbooks).
Yes! Yes! It worked wonderfully on QB2013 with my Windows 10 64bit. Thank you so much Mr. Joseph Turley! You’ve just remove my stress from my wife asking me to figure this one out. Lol
Thank you so much! It worked for me too!
Oh, I am so grateful – it was still a stretch for my non-savviness but I got there thanks to you!
Glad we got you there. 🙂
Mr Turley — I made the apparent mistake a couple of weeks ago of both upgrading to Windows 10 AND QuickBooks 2016. Hate ’em both. Maybe QB because of Win 10?? Anyway, went to save a set of financial statements today as PDF’s to send to a client, and no go… So much time spent on such a little thing! Found your post, but as the solution / steps were for QB2012 was wondering if you thought or knew they’d be the same for QB2016? Don’t want to create additional headaches. For now I’ll print, scan, and email I suppose… Thanks much.
Leslie, I believe they should be pretty similar for QB2016. QuickBooks hasn’t innovated a whole lot over the years and I think their ways of creating PDF’s are similar, if not identical. Give it a try and let us know how it turns out. Thanks!
I had the same problem on 2 different laptops. I work with Quickbooks pro 2012 and when the windows 10 automatically installed itself when i was out of town..I could no longer email pdf files. I followed your steps and it works flawlessly. Thanks a bunch for the fix.
IT WORKED
I never leave a comment, but after upgrading to Windows 10 so many of these little hiccups came up that I wanted to go back to windows 7 I found your fix and I can go back to running my business till the next hiccup from Windows 10
THANK YOU for the fix
Sweet man! I love that it helped enough to get a comment and that you’re back on with your business. Happy trails.
I usually don’t write any comment, but as I’m so happy because finally the problem was solved; I followed all steps and it worked perfect. Thank you so much for share this with the users.
Glad it helped you today. Enjoy.
Worked like a charm. Thank you so much!
Thank You So Much!!!
7/27/16
Joe:
This worked well. Thanks for the posting.
You’re quite welcome. 🙂
We have QB 2009 Premier and just upgraded to Win 10 and followed this and no dice! Can’t save Sales Orders as PDF!
Any help???? Thanks! 🙂
Hi, I’m having the same issue with QB 2010. I followed the steps for QB 2012 but it hasn’t worked for me. I think this is because 2010 uses QuickBooks PDF Converter instead of Microsoft XPS. I tried deleting QB PDF Converter and renaming the XPS Printer but this didn’t work either. Do you have any other ideas?
Hi, I’ve now found the solution for Quickbooks 2010. I presume this will work for other versions too if anyone else hasn’t got the above to work…
Run RegEdit as Administrator
Edit permissions on HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Software
Users: Full Control
Close RegEdit, Close and restart Quickbooks. This solved my problem with Quickbooks 2010 and Windows 10.
Courtesy of the Intuit Community thread ‘430143-printer-not-activated-error-code-20’
Thanks for that fix, it worked like a charm! This was in QB 2011 and I really wasn’t relishing the idea of having to individually print to PDF every invoice. Whew!
Thank you!
Another person sticking with Quickbooks 2012 Pro and just upgraded to Windows 10. The only real hiccup I noticed since the install was the inability to create pdf’s through Quickbooks.
A quick search and your solution came up. Very smooth. I expected to have some difficulty, but I got it on the first try.
One note, I had know idea where to find Devices and Printers (I’ve only had Windows 10 for a couple days, so I am not used to it yet). Anyone with this issue, simply do a search for it (Devices and Printers), came right up and everything else was step by step.
Thank you!
Hi Joseph,
Thank you so much for your hard work!
I followed your steps, and have gotten past the “Your forms were not sent because QuickBooks could not create the necessary PDF files.” error.
However, the pdf’s that are generated are corrupted. When emailing an invoice, most of the text is garbled characters. Oddly enough, when viewing the QB generated pdf in a browser, most (but not all) text is garbled, but when viewing in Adobe Reader, the garbled text is just blank.
Have you or anyone on the forum experienced this? To see if some of my fonts got corrupted during installation of Windows 10, I tried changing the font in the QB template to Arial, but I still am having the same issues.
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
Worked perfectly for QB 2013, thank you!!!
Thank you!, Worked like a charm!!!!
Thank you ~ of all the solutions I found, this was the one that work for me with the few edits you noted one may run into. Extremely thankful!
Thanks!! Worked great!!
Bless you for sharing this info.
Thanks a million! I spent hours trying all sorts of stuff and could not resolve this issue. It is to be noted that this same xps driver resolves some issues with MS Office too!
Good to know!
Thank you very much.
I was having the same problem with Windows 10 and Quickbooks 2013. This has helped to rescue a very depressing day!
Hello, this did not work for me. Even though I deleted the XPS printer, when I try to create it again it gives me an error message “that port name already exists” — I previously fixed this problem, but I had to delete some files and re-install the XPS printer driver. Very frustrating 🙁
Thanks!!!!!! Worked great!! Had to use different access method but at the end just delete the existing Microsoft XPS Document Writer and then add the new one. Remember to go to File–Print Setup in Quickbooks and select Microsoft XPS Document Writer.
IT WORKED!!! You are the best! I called Quckbooks and they said the only solution was to buy Quickbooks online because it`s not compatible with windows 10. Sooo untrue!!!
Indeed! And this post lives to help others avoid the same untruths. 🙂 Have a great day.
Thanks Joseph! It took several tries, but finally worked. I downloaded the XPS writer, but still couldn’t see the file folder. Then I moved it to the desktop and found it. Windows 10 QB2013
Nice! Glad that was helpful for you.
Thanks! It worked!!
2016.09.23 Had to do this again after Windows update.
Interesting… Thanks for sharing that as people might need this article a second time.
Same here – update required repeat. THANKS!
Crazy, but glad the steps still work.
Thank you so much, it worked so well.
Yes, I also had to redo the workaround after the win 10 anniversary upgrade. . Thanks again.
I delete the Microsoft XPS and when I go to make a new one it says Port already exists.
If I recall correctly, you can install and create the port with a different name than XPS.
This worked before when I had to upgrade to Windows 10 but now it has done an update and will not work at all. It continues to say Port already exists.
And now it will not even allow me print to my printer.
Hi everyone, I have had the same problem, my fix stopped working after the update, but I have repeated the same simple fix I have shown previously and it is all up and running again. Here it is again…
Run RegEdit as Administrator
Edit permissions on HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Software
Users: Full Control
Close RegEdit, Close and restart Quickbooks. This solved my problem with Quickbooks 2010 and Windows 10.
Courtesy of the Intuit Community thread ‘430143-printer-not-activated-error-code-20’
Nice Derek. I’m sure that will help others on here.
Thanks for the additional tips. Unfortunately, this did not work for me and now my invoices will not even print to my printer.
Sorry to hear that Aimee, this has worked for me and for lots of others in the Intuit Community. I’ve searched for this in the forum that I got it from to see if there were any others that experienced this issue but that thread has now been archived. The only thing I can suggest is to make sure that your printer has been set back to the default printer as when I originally had issues it kept making the non functioning pdf printer the default.
Or the other option would be if the original post didn’t help, try reverting the pdf printer drivers, names etc that you changed back to how they were then try the reg edit solution.
Thank you Derek! To set back to the default printer would this be under printer and devices or in quick books itself?
It would be in the printer and devices. When Joseph’s guide didn’t work for me, every time I tried to print to pdf it would change my default printer so thought that might be worth a try for you.
I used this solution when I first upgraded to Windows 10. A few days ago an update was installed and the problem returned. After spending hours trying to use the solution posted above, I couldn’t make it work again. I kept getting a message that the file couldn’t be found. Finally I discovered that I had to remove the all the downloaded driver files from the folder for it to work.
Thanks again!
Thanks. It worked for me. May God add to your wisdom.
Can’t thank you enough!
Great job!
Happy to help Susie and Peris.
This worked well, but after the first PDF sales order is saved/printed, it goes back to the same error message forcing me to go through all these steps to get one-more-stinking S/O handled.
Windows 10 and QB2012…thanks for the “update” Windows! *sad face*
-Erik
Thanks. My problem was QuickBooks Pro 2011 wasn’t printing invoices after Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607). No useful help is available from QuickBooks. QB repair tool didn’t work.
Print Management didn’t permit adding a new printer (Windows 10 Pro), so I used Devices & Printers in Control Panel. After deleting the XPS printer, I tried to add a new one and found the XPS port existed. I used the existing port to install Microsoft XPS Document Writer. Logged off, restarted QuickBooks and was good to go.
Thanks!
Thank you Louis! This allowed me to at least print the invoices to my printer but did not allow me to make PDF. Although once I tried to send on via email I resulted back to not being able to print to my printer again. Ohhhh the frustration. Thanks again!
I’m in the same boat as Aimee. Very frustrating
Fank,
Have you yet to find a resolution to this problem. I am on the verge of calling Quickbooks to Microsoft.
Thanks for the information. I have this page bookmarked and I come back to it after every windows update and it always fixes my issue.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!!!
I called Microsoft and they are saying that it is a QB problem. I have not yet called QB. I think I may have to update my version of QB. Thoughts?
Worked perfectly for my QB Enterprises 11.0 running on windows 10 Pro Version 1511. I can now send invoices via Microsoft Outlook 2007 without first having to print to Adobe to create the pdf. The “Email” button on the invoice works again! Sweet! Thanks! Now if they can only get the bugs out of the Windows 10 1604 update!
Jim in Calif.
Thanks brotherman, worked like a charm.
Thank you, Joseph. Your tutorial is spot on. I had this printer issue twice since upgrading to Windows 10 – and I run the most recent, fully updated, version of QuickBooks. Too bad QB isn’t as good on the official site as you are on yours. Instead they have that horrid advice piece titled Cannot reconcile accounts or create, print, or email .pdf files (PDF tool). A colossal waste of time, and didn’t do a darn thing except chew up working hours. Even worse is what I see happening to people in this post – getting advice to purchase more recent versions when that won’t solve the problem. Ugh.
Awesome. Glad I could help keep your business flowing. Enjoy!
Tried this multiple of times, but it failed. What my issued turned out to be was my client had to change his Yahoo password. Once he changed it, Yahoo disabled the security setting “Allow apps that user less secure sign in” Once I enabled this setting, he was able to email his invoices.
Worked! Thank you!
* update: This worked for me for a couple of emails and then would fail again. I had to quit and restart QuickBooks multiple times after each failure before it would work again for one or two invoices. It took me an an hour to email 13 invoices, so I have decided to bite the bullet and upgrade to a new version of QB.
That’s too bad. They sure do what they can to get you to buy the newest software that you don’t need.
Your solution was concisely explained and worked perfectly. No issues! Thanks!!
Your solutions works. Instructions were clear and easy to follow. Great job!
just tried this…twice…and restarted and still getting the error message. i am using qb pro 12 on windows 10:(
Thank you worked like a charm. Much appreciated.
Happy to help!
Thank You It Worked
rgds
John
I have Windows 10 Pro and Quickbooks Pro 2016 and I can’t print invoices without freezing up. If I try to print to PDF it freezes.
Thank you so much for your clear and fantastic fix. I don’t know why deleting and reinstalling the XPS Document writer works, but it apparently does.
When Microsoft pushed Windows 10 in the middle of 2016, without my permission, this stung me the first time! I used your fix.
Here I am at the end of 2016 and, without thinking, I updated Windows 10 like it said I should. It killed my Quickbooks again!
So from now on, NO UPDATES I guess. That’s just terrible. Thanks Microsoft and Quickbooks. – Sarcasm
Thank you Joseph Turley – Sincere gratefulness
🙂 Glad to have been of help to you. Your comment brightened my day as well.
Just had to thank you again. This worked again, 3rd time, after the new update pushed. Sincerely appreciate this!
thank you so much for your help, just got new dell with windows 10 and use quickbooks 12 – first of the year billing went out with your help. thanks again.
Thank you, after reading / referencing tons of pages, this was the only one that worked!!!
Worked for QB2013 and Win10. Thanks a lot, much appreciated.
Glad to have helped!
I will be naming my next child Turley. You rock buddy!!! I have been banging my head against the desk for 2 days now.
*laugh* That’s awesome. One of the best comments I’ve ever received! Happy to have helped keep you sane.
It Just Worked! I owe you a drink! Thanks!
Happy to help David. 🙂
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times, thank you!
Thanks a million! The steps were so clear and the link to correct driver made it easy to follow. I had the same problem with Windows 8 on my old laptop, but couldn’t remember exactly what I had done to fix it.
THANK YOU…..easy to follow instructions however i did not delete the old just added as copy 2
ive been struggling with getting invoices and estimates to email
it wouldn’t convert to pdf and attach….since I purchased the quickbooks pro 2012 edition ……
your instructions were spot on……
Thanks a bunch!
Worked with quickbooks pro 2016 and windows 10. I was tired of printing invoices only to scan them back into the computer so that I could email them to my clients! What a PITA! You have helped free up some precious time. Thank you very much!
Happy to have helped. 🙂
Works
Thank you! This IS the answer to the error message received:
Your forms were not sent because QuickBooks could not create the necessary PDF files.
when trying to email and invoice in Quickbooks 2011 and, from the author’s experience, 2012.
Intuit, please fix your QB print and repair tool to create local port XPS instead of that other silly port.
An absolute genius! I have spent many, many hours trying to get to grips with this problem which happens every time I have a Windows 10 update (automatic – so no control). Hours of time wasted trying to find elusive XPS printer after having deleted it from printers list.
Grateful thanks for your easy to follow instructions.
Thank you! this fix still works. I spent hours with Microsoft and reinstalled Windows 10 and they could not solve this problem. but you did!
Thank you! The steps are spot on. I got my problem resolve with your guide.
Having trouble sending copy invoices via QuickBooks Plus 2010/11 since upgrade to Windows 10.
Followed your instructions to Step 3.
After deleing the XPS document writer, found I could not locate Print Management, and from another forum found comment Print Management not available on Windows 10 Home edition.
I upgraded from Windows 7 Home, and was unaware that when upgrade took place, that Windows 10 did not include features outside what was included in 7 Home.
Can you help with a work around this problem.
Thanks
Ian
Worked perfectly – thank you so much!
OMG, I couldn’t believe this. It’s work pretty well. I just did it differently. Just go to the list of the installed printer, you will see Microsoft XPS documents Writer as a printer, just delete it. And download the driver provided on this page. Install a new printer using that driver and that’s it. Works perfect!
Thank you!!
Raza
Hey, thanks for writing in and so happy it helped you. Thanks!
thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Joseph! You saved my life last year when with this same issue. Came back to the office this morning to an automatic Windows 10 update (I thought I had disabled updates?!?), and now PDF’s are broken again. I repeated your steps again, and I can save PDF’s now, but they are blank templates, or otherwise corrupted.
Any advice on how to keep this sinking ship patched up?
Thank you!!
Sujay,
Unfortunately, no. The behavior seems to have been consistent across a lot of users with updates undoing the fix. It’s very annoying, but I don’t think there is much we can do in the face of the Microsoft machine I’m afraid.
Thanks for the prompt reply Joseph! Trying to roll back the updates, I’ll reply back if it works.
your a savior. ty so much.
Thank you sooooo much! It solved the issue for me!
Worked perfectly – thank you so much
Regards Tom
I realize the age of the article and I never reply to them, but thank you. You just save my client some serious cash. Plus they love 2011.
Thank you.
Well, I think you for taking the time to respond and saving people money is why I wrote it. Perfect. 🙂
I have used this “fix” many time over the last 5 years. Apparently Windows 10 did an update while I was away for the holiday and now the “fix” won’t work. When I create the new local port “XPS” it says it already exists. I have deleted everything I could find with XPS in/attached/on it. Is there a trick to find other XPS files other than searching in the search box and searching in the device manager? HELP!! Also thanks for coming up with this work around of a quite expensive product that shouldn’t need it!
Hmm.. Good question. Are you using Windows 10 Pro? If you are, have you scoured Print Management, particularly the port section?
Just install over it.
I’m using Win 10 and QB Pro 2016…plagued with the problem. Yes, installing a separate PDF creator as a printer works, but….why can’t QB fix the problem? Updated QB today, still doesn’t work. Applied the fix herein…worked perfectly!
Had to search for the file prnms001.inf – on my system it was located in \windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository\prnms001.inf_amd64_dbXXXXXXXXXXXXX – but once found, it worked perfectly.
Thanks so much!!
I, too, have used this workaround many times; basically every time Windows 10 updates. This time, however, I have a new problem. After running the fix, QB no longer is saying it can’t create a PDF file, it’s telling me that Outlook is not responding, open Outlook and try again. Well, it’s all open but it will not work. I’ve already tried reloading the programs and rebooting the computer.
I was able to get down to the part where I had removed the XPS driver, tried to install the new and now nothing works. No print let alone getting a pdf back in use. Frustrated….
Got back to printing, will leave well enough alone….
Worked like a CHAMP.
I first tried the Intuit Quickbooks solution that runs a program which attempts the above automatically – surprise that didn’t work.
Thank you so very much, My Windows 10 build was forced to upgrade to the most recent Fall Build, and it broke my Quickbooks 2011 version so that I could not send email invoices. But installing the driver fixed the problem.
Thanks again!
This is working for me, but now, the subject heading and name of the emailed-from-quickbooks pdf is a very long subject. Its Inv_number_CompanyFullName_ProcessID
with underscores for spaces in name. The process id is random, whatever Windows assigns it when I start Quickbooks. The “PID” is found in the Task Manager under the tab “Details” Its kind of annoying, I forget exactly what it was before, but it was not this long of a pdf name. Any ideas how to shorten this?
Great inputs. Fixed my problem. It was always loading XPS with extra letters at the end.
When I corrected that, it worked great. Thanks.
That worked for me! Thanks very much.
Using W10 and QB2016 for years and could never email invoices. Tried upgrading to QB2018 and still had this issue. I spent 3+ hours following QB directions and another hour with QB support to no avail. This is the only solution that worked for me. Thanks!
PS. I could not find the XPS Document writer drivers anywhere else either!
Thank you so much! I’ve been struggling with this issue for 2 days.
Thank You AGAIN! This is one of my most important bookmarks. Windows 10 updated itself again without my consent and this is the 3rd time I’ve had to follow these instructions. Thank You!
Small note this time: at step 3: create new local port and name XPS, it wouldn’t let me said already existed. So i chose use existing port XPS and installed there.
Actually 4th time I think not 3rd! What a pita Microsoft automatically updating is.
Thanks a lot
Hi
Thanks so much for the fix. Worked 100%
Dave
YOU ARE A GENIUS! I HAVE SPENT HOURS ON THIS. QUICKBOOKS TECH SUPPORT WAS USELESS AS USUAL. I CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH!
Worked for me when the Quickbooks tool didn’t. Thanks…
Worked perfect, THANK YOU!!!
OMG – I’ve been banging my head against the wall. I wish I found his days ago. THANK YOU FOR POSTING!!
Happy to have helped you and everyone else who has needed this lately. 🙂
This worked for me. Cannot tell you how important this was. Thanks so much!
Very very helpful
Finally! A solution that actually worked! Such a simple answer in comparison to Intuit’s “Sorry, you’ll have to blow another $200 for an unnecessary upgrade.” Thank you!
Awesome man. That’s what I love to hear. Have a drink on my behalf with the money you saved!
Thanks so much!
What a huge help!!
Great Thanks! I just installed QB 2012 on a new laptop and come across this pdf problem again! I was please to find a QB utility online but that did not fix anything as you mentionned. I did as I remembered, delete the XPS printer and re-install the a “new” XPS printer using the old driver. However, I did not create a new printer port initially. So it did not worked. I finally succeeded by creating a new port as you explain above. Thanks!!
Whatever you do, PLEASE KEEP THIS UP!!! I have had to refer back to is several times now. I just went through an big windows update and it messed up my quickbooks. This also repairs problems where the account statements are sent out to the wrong people.
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!! PURE GENIUS!
I was ecstatic when Windows 10 was released in 2015 and immediately opted for the upgrade. Little did I know that it would have messed up my QuickBooks PDF feature. For months and months I searched for a solution and nothing worked. So I practically gave up and settled on exporting documents to excel and then saving them as PDFs from excel. That of course didn’t work for invoices and statements. For those I had to actually print them and scan them as PDFs (which took time and was a waste of paper). Tonight I decided I will check to see if anyone found a solution that actually worked. I tried this and it worked!!!!!!! I am so grateful to you for sharing this solution with us. Now I can go to work and fix that issue on all of our computers. I am so relieved. Again I say thank you.
This worked perfect for me the first time I needed it. However, after what I can only assume was a Windows update last week it is broken again. Repeating the steps now does not resolve the issue. Any further thoughts?
Unfortunately, no. It always seems to be related to these steps in some way from all of the comments below. It’s occasionally just one or two things different from this article, but I am not sure what else to suggest. Sorry!
This worked for me the first time too. NOw I have had a Windows update and a quickbooks update and it won’t work and nothing I do is fixing it. I’ve spent 3 hours today and it won’t work. I have to print out invoices, then scan them into my computer then go to my mail program, find that person’s email which doesn’t always come up right away and attach the invoices. This is insanity and Quickbooks support is useless. Really need this fixed. Help!
What is the best version of the XPS driver to download? Your link is showing there is a virus attached to your google link.
Interesting. I didn’t have an issues with a virus alert when I tested it just now, but just to be sure I deleted that link from the post and now all that is left is the file hosted directly on my blog. Feel free to download that one and it should work. Thanks!
Works perfectly!!!
THANK YOU! Just upgraded to Windows 10 at work and had to do all the update/download/compatibility/thought I was just going to have to upgrade nonsense for my QB 2012. Then after all that I couldn’t email my invoices and I knew it was something as stupid as this, just didn’t know the steps! You’re a life saver! TY!!!
Happy to have helped and thanks for sharing your gratitude. 🙂
thanks for your help is working perfect
Joseph – HELP! Followed your instructions to the ‘T’ and didn’t work, and I want to cry since it’s obviously helped so many people;(( I was operating QB2012 Premier on my Win 7 laptop. Just upgraded to Lenovo Win 10 laptop and email receipts/invoices not going out. Did the XPS local port drill – nothing. still had error message that said cannot create PDF. Tried going to FILE and do manually via SEND FORMS and SAVE AS PDF, no dice. Only thing I found to ‘work’ was going to PRINT from the receipt, using Microsoft PRINT TO PDF ON PORTPROMPT… this is the ONLY option after installing xps document writer, uninstalling it, turning off qb, rebooting laptop, etc… that allowed me to save doc as PDF. Then I have to file it away, then write a manual email to client to send out. Way too time consuming this way running a business. HELP??! What am I doing wrong? I tried all the tips be community members, clicking on EVERYONE in printer security, going to Printer Set up to make sure XPS Document Writer was chosen, etc…
I tried to reply to you via email, but it looks like you are filtering messages. Let me know if there is another way to contact you. Use the contact form on my website and I’ll get back to you.
You are a genius i spent 6 hours trying different methods trying to integrate my Quickbooks Enterprise V13 with Outlook 2013 this solved all my issue in one simple swop… Thank so much keep up the splendid work…
Thank you so much.. this seems to have worked for me.
I love you Joe!
Thank you so much for this information!!!! I have struggled with this issue since Windows 10 came out and I would have to do a re-install for any reason. It became quite frustrating. Now I have the fastest and easiest solution thanks to you!
Hi Joe. I had to delete and add the XPS printer through settings and the control panel (I have a “Windows Home” machine running “10” so I couldn’t get to “Print Management”). Once I re-added with the driver you provided it seems to be working great. I did have to go into QB Printer Set Up choose “On-line” forms and direct it to the newly installed XPS option.
Thank you for taking the time to post this solution and provide the driver. It’s cool to see that it’s literally helped people for years now. Thank you again!
Worked perfectly! Except it undid itself, which is odd. Did all the steps again and it’s working, so thanks!
THANK YOU!
saved my life!!! omg thank you for this easy fix! saved me so much time and aggravation after i updated windows 10!
Thank you so much!!! Your fix worked!
Thanks !! I have quickbook 12.0.. and read a lot of solutions dind’t work untill I found yours !!!
I can’t thank you enough!
Thank You!! Thank You!! Thank YOU!! I do not have great IT support (it’s the bosses wife!!), and finding this quick fix was just what I needed to get QB running better since we upgraded to Windows 10!
I’m very happy this is still helping people. 🙂 Happy to do it.
Thank you SO much for posting this. I was able to get my Quickbooks 12 going again.
My problem was slightly different, but your solution solved it too. Our problem with QB2012 on Windows10 was send email with PDF attachment from invoice window sometimes sends out the wrong invoice. The name of the attached pdf file has the correct invoice number, but the content of pdf is actually a wrong invoice. Initially I though it was because of QB2012R16 update, but it wasn’t. Then I though it was Adobe Reader, but it didn’t help either. Later, found your post, thought it may be related, it worked! Thanks.
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
Genius! I can’t tell you how much time I have wasted trying to fix this problem. Your solution worked in minutes – Thankyou!!!
Thanks so much! It fixed the issue on our Windows 2019 Terminal server.
Thank you! I just got a new computer and nothing I tried would let me save invoices as PDFs. I was afraid to try your suggestions, but gave it a try and it worked! My biggest problem was finding the driver I downloaded. But once I did and unzipped it, it worked perfectly!
I’ve seen the Microsoft XPS document writer get reset back to using the portprompt port for some reason. I haven’t been able to track down what does this, maybe windows 10 feature upgrades? At any rate setting it back to the local XPS port does the trick.
Dude, YOU THE MAN! Computer died a couple of weeks ago. Everything was backed up, but had to switch to my Windows 8.1 laptop in the meantime. Same story, doing my month end invoicing and got the errors. The useless Quickbooks tool didn’t work, but this did!
Best of all, my new machine will be my first Windows 10 machine and I expect I’ll have the same problem. But thanks to you, I’ll know how to solve it. Clearly you’ve saved a lot of people. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for taking the time to let me know that it was useful! I’m glad to have helped. Your art is amazing, as I’m sure you’ve been told many times. Keep up the beautiful creative work.
OMG. I spent the last 4+ hours trying every option I could find in Quickbooks help to get my XPS e-mail printing fixed after a massive Windows 10 update that has messed up multiple things on my computer. This took a whole few minutes. THANK YOU!
Happy to have helped. I only wish I could help people BEFORE they spend 4+ hours trying other things. 😉