LaserJet 500 m551 defaults to tray 1; the manual feed tray

[jamesd3rd]

Whenever I try to print to the LaserJet 500, I have to select tray 2 from the control panel on the printer even though the driver is set to 'automatic'.  Shouldn't the printer detect if the manual feed door is open and default to tray 2 if it is not?  What is the purpose of an 'automatic' setting if we have to manually select it anyway.

This happens from both XP and Windows 7 systems using the HP Universal PS driver.  How do I get it to print to tray 2?  Is this something that has to be done within the printer properties?  Then what happens if I want to use tray 1?  Will I then need to select it when I want to use it?

Also, I have not been able to find any details on how to use the 'Manage Trays' menu.  There are no explanations on what the settings mean and it's not intuitive.

Thanks

[TjeerdHB]

I've asked myself that question too.

[MikeN2]

If an M551 printer is prompting for paper in Tray 1, that likely means that it looked in Tray 2 and didn't find the size that the job needed.  Because of that it is prompting for paper in Tray 1.

The M551 does not have size sensing trays, so it is counting on the user to tell it what size paper is in Tray 2 (and Tray 3 if it has an additional tray).  I'm guessing that you have Tray 2 set to something like Legal and the job is trying to print on Letter.  This might be happening even though Tray 2 has Letter actually loaded.

When you close any tray, the printer will ask you to confirm what size and type of media you just loaded.  If you ignore this reminder, it will assume the size and type are the same as before, and the reminder will go away after several seconds.

To this printer, it doesn't matter what is actually loaded in the tray.  It goes by what it was last told for the size and type.  Most of the time, people get the size set correctly, then never change it again.  That works great.

Mike

[MikeN2]

Sorry for the repeat messages.  I just noticed there was a second question that I didn't answer in my first post.

Using Tray 1 (MP Tray) is very easy.  The default setting for Tray 1 is Any Type and Any Size.  If left at this default configuration, using Tray 1 is as easy as putting paper in the tray and sending a print job.  If Tray 1 is set to Any Type and Any Size, it will be used for EVERY print job as long as there is paper in the tray.  This will be true even if there is another tray that also has the correct size and type.

If you don't like this behavior, you can set the size and/or type of Tray 1, just like any other tray.  Again, this is done with the pop-up screen that appears after loading paper in Tray 1.  Once you set the size or type on Tray 1, it will only be used when it matches the size / type of the print job.

Mike

[onlinekate]

Try "disabling" the manual feed.  You should be able to find this option under the "General Print Settings" menu on the printer.  "Disabling the manual feed" option just removes this tray as an automatic tray option when printing.  You can still you use the manual feed tray, but you will have to specifically select "Tray 1" or "Tray 1 (Manual Feed).  This is how we wanted the printer to function.

Hope that helps.  It worked for us.