Unable to print booklet using Legal paper and Booklet Finisher

[GESmith]

I am trying to print 12 - 20 page booklets onto 8.5"x14" legal size paper with four 7"x8.5" pages per sheet of paper. Until recently we would simply use MS Word and lay out the page as a booklet. Then Word would impose the document and print it to a dumb printer. We would fold the printed output in half and have a nice booklet. It is tedious to print a large number of these documents, so we used a Konica-Minolta printer with a finisher that worked nicely until the printer developed fatal electronic issues. We now have a new HP Color LaserJet M880 with attached Booklet Finisher Stapler accessory.

I contacted HP Support and got a case number, but the agent referred me to the HP video on printing a booklet using letter-size pages onto Ledger-size output. I was able to  successfully print a booklet following that video and the support agent determined that the printer and booklet accessory were functioning according to specifications and closed the case. I don't think he ever understood my problem which is incorrect page imposition onto Legal-size paper. 

I have tried formatting the document as a booklet in MS Word and as a simple sequence of pages. I have tried the following HP PCL6 printer driver settings with the results noted at the bottom. I am about to conclude that our best solution is to give up on the Booklet maker and fold the booklets by hand...

Tab	Option	Setting 1	Setting 2	Setting 3	Setting4
Advanced
	Paper/Output	1 copy	No changes
	Graphic	ICM: disabled
	Document Options	Adv features: enabled Optimizations: enabled
	Printer Features	Edge-to Edge: off Only black text: No True Type as Bitmap: No Raster Compress: Auto Alt Letterhead mode: off
	Layout Options	Print Front to back			Print back to front
Printing Shortcuts
Paper/Quality
	Paper Size:	Letter	Legal-Half (7x8.5”)	Letter (or Legal)	Letter (or Legal)
	Paper Source	Automatic
	Paper Type	Unspecified
	Special Pages	None
	Print Quality	Normal	Image Ret4800
Effects
	Resizing Options	Print document on 11x17	Legal (8.5x14”)		Legal
	Scale to fit	Yes	Yes		Yes
	Watermarks	[none]
Finishing
	Print on both sides	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Flip pages up	No	No	No	No
	Booklet Layout	Left binding	Left binding	Left binding	Left binding
	Pages per sheet:	2 pages per sheet	2 pages per sheet	2 pages per sheet	2 pages per sheet
	Print page borders	off	off	off	off
	Page Order	Right then down	Right then down	Right then down	Right then down
	Orientation	Portrait	Portrait	Portrait	Portrait
	Rotate by 180 deg	No	No	No	No
Output
	Staple	Fold and Stitch	Not Allowed	Fold and Stitch	Fold and stitch
	Punch	None
	Output Bin	Automatic
Job Storage
	Storage Mode	Off
	Make Job Private	No
Color
	Color Options	Automatic
	Print Grayscale	No
	HP EasyColor	Yes

Notes:

Setting 1: As described in HP Print a booklet in Windows using the booklet finisher. Works as advertised. The printer automatically imposes the document. (MS Word: booklet layout NOT used. MS Office: print front to back. )

Setting 2: Prints as desired, but does not fold or staple. [Useless]

Setting 3: Prints a folded, stapled booklet, but imposition is wrong. A 12-page document prints pages 5,6,3,4,1,2,11,12,9,10,7,8. A 16-page booklet prints pages 7,8,5,6,3,4,1,2,15,16,13,14,11,12,9,10

Setting 4: Same results as setting 3.

[Repairatrooper]

On the printer itself, do you have the trays configured to reflect actual loaded paper. When folding you must declare the paper type that is loaded in the tray. A setting of any or any paper type that exceeds the paper handling abilities of the folder will disable folding due to the fact that the programming of the printer checks the paper type to ensure that the loaded media is one that they printer can fold.  The other thing we have found is that some drivers do not cooperate with booklet making process. You need to ensure you are using the current "discrete" driver (driver produced only for this printer) in order for printing functions to all work properly.

[GESmith]

The printer accurately reports the type of paper in each tray. The problem is not in folding, but in the page order of the printed booklet. the booklets are nicely folded and stapled, but completely unusable. The problem appears to be one of imposition.

[Repairatrooper]

OK, I tested our E87660 with booklet maker (we had issue with this until we started using the current dedicated V3 driver. This was a PDF consisting of letter size pages, printed out using the following settings. 

[GESmith]

As noted earlier, there is no problem printing letter-size booklets on 11x17 paper. The problem is printing a document onto legal-size paper. We normally print bulletins with 7"x8.5" pages that fit two to a legal-size sheet of paper. When they are printed in the proper order, front and back, they can be folded into a nice multi-page booklet. Typically 12 to 20 pages using 3 to 5 sheets of legal-size paper. For some classes we use 5.5"x8.5" pages that fit onto letter-size sheets. [I actually have not tried that specific imposition , but will do so this morning.]

[Repairatrooper]

The settings I posted were letter to legal sized output. Can you confirm the exact driver and revision and the version number of the firmware that  is installed on the printer please. 

[GESmith]

I just read your settings which are for Legal-size output. I tried those settings and they work perfectly for a 4-page document, but they fail for all other sizes. For an 8-page document, the booklet produced begins with page 3 followed by 4, 1, 2, 7, 8, 5, and finally 6.  The problem is in imposition. I have tried letting Word impose the output and using the printer to simply print, but it seems that whenever you select  Finishing:booklet the printer wants to do the imposition. So I turned off the booklet layout in Word and just printed the pages in sequence (1 --> 8). That works for a letter-size document (as shown in the HP video sample) but fails for output onto legal paper.

I have just tried printing a booklet onto letter-sized paper (pages = 5.5"x8.5") and I have the same problem as with legal-size output.

I have success with letter-size pages printed onto ledger-size paper (any number of pages) and 4-page documents containing 7x8.5" pages printed onto legal-size paper, but longer legal-size output is unusable.

Since your solution works with a pdf document, I will try saving the Word document as a pdf and see it it works any better.

[GESmith]

I tried saving the document as a pdf file and printing from Acrobat Reader. I noticed that in your example, Adobe considered the page size to be 8.5x14, so I made that change and used your settings. The resulting booklet was imposed correctly, but the pages were too small to read even with scale-to-fit selected. So I tried with the correct page size (7x8.5) specified in Reader.  Unfortunately, the option for fold and stitch is unavailable with those settings.