HP PageWide Color 556 - Can't get the printer to automatically switch to the tray with WALZ mailers

[DashMartin]

We just purchased an HP PageWide Color 556 to print out WALZ mailers. For some reason when we print, it tries to print from manual feed tray 1 instead of tray 2 which contains the mailers. A screenshot of the current settings is attached.

[dansdaduk]

What attributes are used within the print job to select the paper source?

Ideally they should be set to PaperSize=Letter and PaperType=Cardstock 176-225g to match the tray configuration of tray 2.

[DashMartin]

Yep, tried those settings for the print job and it's still trying to print from Tray 1. Is there a setting that tells the printer to switch to the next tray if Tray 1 is empty automatically instead of having to physically press a button on the printer to tell it to do so?

[dansdaduk]

if your print job is  specifying a different paper size and/or paper type than what the printer believes (via its tray configuration) what it has available, then you should probaly get a prompt on the (printer display screen) indicating what size and type is being requested.

If you don't get any such prompt, perhaps your print job is specifying 'manual feed' (rather than 'printer auto-select', or equivalent) for the paper source setting?

[DashMartin]

Yes, it's prompting on the printer. Many people are sending print jobs for these mailers to the printer. They can't walk back and forth all day to select tray 2 on the printer display. It needs to choose tray 2 automatically when tray 2 is specified in the print job.

[dansdaduk · Accepted solution]

I obviously didn't make myself clear enough in my previous response.

You should only get a prompt if the paper attributes (size, type, source identifier) cannot be matched by what the printer believes it has in its cassette trays (in terms of those attributes).

So (for example) if your print job specifies explicitly selects tray 2 (via it's Page Description Language specific tray identifier, which almost certainly will not be 2), but also requests paper size = Letter and paper type = Plain, the printer cannot match this to any of its configured trays, so won't know what you intend, and will halt with a prompt.

The prompt (e.g. load Plain Letter) should indicate which paper size and type (Letter and Plain respectively in this example) has been requested.

So exactly what prompt are you getting?

It is usually better to just specify the required paper size and type, and set the paper (tray) source identifier to 'printer auto-select', although some applications (e.g. Word) may not allow you to select the paper type directly via their bespoke Print dialogues (so you have to use the printer driver dialogue).