This has been making me crazy for the past several weeks and I don't know how to fix it.

Sometime a few weeks ago my tray selection printing default ("General Everyday Printing" in my print options dialog) changed from "Automatically Select" to "Manual Feed in Tray 1". If, in the print options dialog I click the "Reset" button, it resets to the proper default of "Automatically Select", but the next time I open that file it will be back to the "Manual Feed..." option.

Interestingly, this happens with MS Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat files created after this problem arose. Old files will show the correct print options. Newly created files won't print until I change the print options.

Some programs apparently will create new files that have the proper options, Paint.net being one. No doubt there are others that work correctly, and no doubt there are other programs that don't send the correct printer options.

The printer is an HP 2025dn color laser printer, with PCL6 print drivers. SWMBO's iMac prints to the same printer (connected to it through my router) without any problems.

What could be causing this behavior, and how can I fix it?

tanstaafl.

This is a windows box?

Check to see if the default Print Preferences have been munged. Check by opening the printer from the printers and fax list of printers.

Like Glenn said. Print preference defaults are not set through print dialogs in applications, they're set through the list of printers in Windows.

Start > Run > "control printers"

They did it that way so that you could change settings for one print job and not have it screw up every following print job. The main example is when companies will set the default printing to black and white to save money, but still gives their users the ability to change it to color when they need it.

That takes me to the same dialog I get to any time I click on the "Print Options" button in any application. In other words, I go to print an Excel file and I know it is going to call for "Manual Tray 1" so before I click "OK" to print the file I click "Options" in order to set the tray selection to "Automatic".

I am calling up the PCL6 dialog box from my application in order to set up the printer. The frustrating part is, the default is "Automatic", because the "Reset" button in the PCL6 dialog is lit up ready to click and when I click it, it does reset the tray selection properly. However, this change to the correct default will be in effect only until I close the file. After that, if I open the file again, it will be back to "Manual Tray 1".

And, if I open an older file, one created before this problem began plaguing me, the tray select default will be correct, i.e., "Automatic".

Something in MS Word, Excel, Acrobat, and no doubt a few other programs, is telling PCL6 to change the tray selection for the particular print job to "Manual Tray 1" instead of the default "Automatic". Below is a screen shot of what my "Options" screen looks like. If I click that "Reset" button, it will change it to the default setting of "Automatic" for the paper source.

A reading of the PCL6 help file (about 50 pages) has little useful information about this, other than to say in several places that the default paper source is "Automatic". The "General Everyday Printing" is used by default from every application unless I specify a different shortcut.

tanstaafl.

Right. If you enter the print properties from the application with a document open, that controls how that particular document is going to print. If you open the printer properties from the Start Menu, that sets the system defaults.

The interesting part is how it's changing away from the defaults when you open a document. Perhaps in this case, your printing preferences are cleverly getting saved with the document? Have you tried:
- Opening the document,
- Going into printing preferences from the document and changing them to your desires,
- Then Saving The Document?

Yes.And if it is a newer document, created after the problem began, the fix lasts only until I close and re-open the file.

Except...

Just to humor you, I took a known "bad" file, checked the options and sure enough it was "Manual Tray 1", changed it to "Automatic", then saved the file. From that point onward, the file was fixed permanently, contrary to previous experiences AND EVERY OTHER FILE I CAN FIND, NEWER, OLDER, FRESHLY CREATED, EXCEL, WORD, ACROBAT, PAINT... I CANNOT find a file that now is set to "Manual Tray 1".

Did you sneak past my firewall and fix it, and now you're just messing with me? I knew at the time I should have just stayed with "Pong" back in the 1970's.

Now I'll see if it stays fixed!

While we're talking about weird printer issues, try this one on for size. My printer has built-in duplexing that works quite well, except for one thing: If I try to print an Adobe Acrobat file duplex, I will get a paper jam every 3--5 pages if I print out of the default tray #2, the "regular" tray that you lay 250 sheets of paper into. I can print a 50 page Excel file or a Microsoft Word file in duplex mode from that tray, but not a PDF file. If I am patient enough and don't mind throwing away four pages to get a 10-page duplex PDF print job, I can eventually print the file. Instead now I just put the pages into the manual feed tray (tray #1, it will hold about 50 sheets) and then the PDF will print with no problems. I just finished an 80-page PDF file (40 sheets of paper duplex) from the manual feed tray and was confident enough to leave the printer unattended while it ran. But if I tried to print that file from the "regular" tray it would take me an hour to get the first 20 pages out of it, and I'd have eight or ten pages in the trash.

Only PDF files exhibit this behavior, and it is absolutely repeatable. As a test just now I saved a PDF file in RTF format and printed a 16-page section of the RTF file duplex from tray 2 with no problems. It would have been virtually impossible to print the original PDF file out of tray 2.

Maybe my printer just doesn't like Adobe.

tanstaafl.

Edit: Ooops, I was wrong. The PDF --> RTF --> Print file only printed 14 of the 16 pages. It jammed on page 15. Not a jam, but a "Misfeed", which is the usual occurrence when printing duplex PDFs.

db

Yes. That's what was getting at. It's the exact same window, but if you approach it from the system side instead of the application side, the change becomes the default instead of a single-time change.


Are you sure you made that change by going to the print dialog within a file? Or did you make it when you had the printer preferences open from the way I told you? When you got to it the way I said, was Word still open?

I don't have an answer for your duplexing issue, other than "next time, I'd recommend against HP printers." I know that's snarky and no help to you...but that's all I've got right now

Yes. MS Word --> Print --> Properties --> Paper Source
Don't know, but I did set the defaults earlier through the system rather than through the application, and I think that must be what made everything right with the world. Don't know why that one file still had the wrong paper source setting, but the rest of them seem to be OK now.

tanstaafl.