LaserJet 2100 tray confusion

[lb1104]

Just purchased this refurb HP LaserJet 2100tn from Printertechs.com. Cannot get it to pull from tray 2 when tray 3 is installed. It always pulls from tray 3. User needs one tray for letter and one tray for legal. I won't go into details as to the troubleshooting done since you will ask anyway.

Thanks for any help on this.

[cs_steve]

This is driver related ... when you go into the driver, you can specify that Tray 3 = LEGAL, TRAY 2 = Letter , etc.

[lb1104]

We have tray 3 set to legal and tray 2 set to letter in the PCL 6 driver. I read that if tray 3 is installed that it becomes the default tray. We tried setting tray 3 to letter and tray 2 to legal. The windows test page and any default printing pulls from tray 3 no matter the size of the paper. We cannot get anything to pull from tray 2 when tray 3 is installed. The user can open the manual feed tray and put paper in it and it pulls from this location okay. I think it might be software related. User prints from Microsoft Word.

[cs_peter]

What I've done on mine is installed the printer twice, once with it set to have tray 3 as the default tray and once where tray 2 is set as the default tray. If you open up Printers and Faxes and right click on the printer, go into printing preferences. On the paper tab you can set the default paper source for the printer. So I have a printer called Colored Paper that prints from tray 2 and one called Letter Paper that prints from tray 3.

[lb1104]

I actually have the printer set up twice already. For some reason, the paper source is grayed out and will not let us change it. It is on Auto Select for both printers. We have administrator permissions so I don't think it is a permissions issue. Any other ideas?

[cs_peter]

Right click on the printer and go to properties, and then the configure tab. You'll want to be sure that Base Printer is set to 2100T. The default is for it to be set to the normal 2100, since they both use the same driver.

[lb1104]

Okay, I changed the base model to 2100tn. When I go to the printing preferences, the source still shows auto select and is still grayed out.

[cs_steve]

I would try a different driver, for example PCL 5, PostScript ... Make sure to download them from HP's web site rather than using the ones built into Windows. I have personally tested the PostScript driver for WinXP from HP's web site, the "Select which tray based on paper size" functionality works for that driver (I can't vouch for the other drivers, haven't tested them).

The 2100 is unfortunately not very "smart" when it comes to paper sizes. (Newer printers like the 4000 series have built-in abilities to detect paper size based on the physical tray settings, rather than depending on the driver.)

[lb1104]

Thanks for the advice, but I was already getting my drivers from hp.com. I have not tried the Post Script driver yet so I went to hp.com again to get it. I noticed there are two places to get drivers. The first place is under the "Driver" list which is where I got mine, but there was no PS driver and the dates are from February 2004. I scrolled on down and noticed the "Driver - Universal Print Driver" section and found PCL5, PCL6 and PS drivers with dates from December 2009. I'm going to try the PCL drivers from here and if that doesn't work, I'll try the PS driver. I'll let you know the results.

[lb1104]

Okay. I started with the PCL6 driver that I found under the "Driver - Universal Print Driver" list. The first PCL6 driver I tried did not work (Test Page printed incorrectly). I tried the PCL6 ver. 5 driver and had success. This was definitely the problem I was having. The user can now print from Word and just let the printer choose the paper source and it works fine. Thanks for the info, I never would have figured this out on my own.

[cs_steve]

Glad that worked -- It's much easier on newer printers with built-in detection but a little more frustrating on these older series ...

[azbruno]

I just picked up a LaserJet 2100tn and want to get it to choose the right tray from Word, etc.

I tried the Universal drivers... all three. I installed in Typical mode, but in each case, it tells me tray 2 is not available, but I can get tray 3 configured. When I installed in Dynamic mode and I selected the printer it caused the Windows Explorer to crash (XP Media Center, all updates).

If lb1104 or someone else could help me offline, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!