We were experiencing the same problem, not only with Access, but also the other Office 97 products. Situation: the default printer (an HP) was changed. In Access and Excel in particular, changing the page orientation had no effect. Orientation could be set to Landscape, but the document (a Report in Access, a Workbook in Excel)would print and print preview as Portrait. Reinstalling the driver on the server, then removing and adding the printer on each workstation solved the problem.
Rhonda