diff --git a/numpy/core/arrayprint.py b/numpy/core/arrayprint.py
index 282fbd1cfb7f..ba5fb607ce7b 100644
--- a/numpy/core/arrayprint.py
+++ b/numpy/core/arrayprint.py
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
                          datetime_data)
 from .fromnumeric import ravel
 from .numeric import asarray
+import operator
 
 if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
     _MAXINT = sys.maxsize
@@ -155,19 +156,19 @@ def set_printoptions(precision=None, threshold=None, edgeitems=None,
     global _formatter
 
     if linewidth is not None:
-        _line_width = linewidth
+        _line_width = operator.index(linewidth)
     if threshold is not None:
-        _summaryThreshold = threshold
+        _summaryThreshold = operator.index(threshold)
     if edgeitems is not None:
-        _summaryEdgeItems = edgeitems
+        _summaryEdgeItems = operator.index(edgeitems)
     if precision is not None:
-        _float_output_precision = precision
+        _float_output_precision = operator.index(precision)
     if suppress is not None:
         _float_output_suppress_small = not not suppress
     if nanstr is not None:
-        _nan_str = nanstr
+        _nan_str = str(nanstr)
     if infstr is not None:
-        _inf_str = infstr
+        _inf_str = str(infstr)
     _formatter = formatter
 
 def get_printoptions():
diff --git a/numpy/core/tests/test_arrayprint.py b/numpy/core/tests/test_arrayprint.py
index 5759a098496c..754cceb3e8ff 100644
--- a/numpy/core/tests/test_arrayprint.py
+++ b/numpy/core/tests/test_arrayprint.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 import numpy as np
 from numpy.compat import sixu
 from numpy.testing import (
-     TestCase, run_module_suite, assert_, assert_equal
+     TestCase, run_module_suite, assert_, assert_equal, assert_raises
 )
 
 class TestArrayRepr(object):
@@ -157,6 +157,10 @@ def test_formatter_reset(self):
         np.set_printoptions(formatter={'float_kind':None})
         assert_equal(repr(x), "array([ 0.,  1.,  2.])")
 
+    def test_type_check(self):
+        d = {}
+        assert_raises(TypeError, np.set_printoptions, d)
+
 def test_unicode_object_array():
     import sys
     if sys.version_info[0] >= 3: