Selecting Tray1 or tray2 for printing

[jumbaro]

I have a HP Officejet Pro 8500A with the additional tray connected underneath the main printer. I would like to keep 1 tray loaded with A4 paper and the other with photo paper so I can remotely print on either A4 or photo paper (from my iPhone or Macbook: MacOSX 10.5.8) without having to change the paper in the tray every time I change from printing a photo to printing a document. Can anyone help?

Cheers..

[Shane_R]

Hello jumbaro,

To the best of my knowledge, Officejet printers that have two trays will not automaticly switch between the two trays, the user has to switch between the trays manually.  The only lines of printers that I know of that will do this are the Lazerjet and Photosmart lines. 

[jumbaro]

Ok... Thx for that. Really appreciate your post. So do you know the point of the second tray then? I am able to select which tray is the default tray on HP utility so would have expected a facility to select one or other tray when printing. Anyway thanks again.

[Shane_R]

The second tray is there to hold a different type of media to prevent you from having to switch between, let's say, legal and letter sizes by physically exchanging the media types in one tray.  The Photosmart and Lazerjet lines are the only ones that will auto-switch based on print job type, to the best of my knowledge at least.

[Justshort · Accepted solution]

Solution:

Set up two printers in the Printer and Scanners window. Choose Apple icon,choose preferences, choose printers and scanners, one as Tray1 and the other as Tray 2.  Format each printer for example, Tray 1 8x11 paper and Tray 2 8 x14 paper.  Make sure to remove duplex default from the formating (unless you want it).   You can choose which tray you want to be the default, I chose Tray 1.

Good Luck