MF743Cdw Printing to Multi-Purpose Tray Settings are Overly Complicated and Do Not Work as Expected

[BruceTexas]

I have been using HP and Canon printers for 30 years.  But with a recent purchase of a MF743Cdw, printing to the Multi-Purpose Tray (MPT) has been a mystery and prints to Drawer1 unexpectedly and inconsistently.  Sometimes it goes to the MPT.  Reviewing community support has been no help and organized in a bewildering way, frankly.  Easy to click on the fat Kudos button, but I don't see many Kudos out there 😞  Mostly unanswered questiosn shggesting where else to turn for answers.

Computer is an HP tower PC w Window 7 Pro 64 bit and all other software and hardware work as expected.

First, upon driver installation, in Printing Preferences we set up the default in Paper Source to "Auto" under the Paper Source tab.  Most documents go to the Letter-Portrait 20 lb paper in Drawer 1.

Then to print Letter-Portrait 20 lb sheet-fed checks, we load check stock in the MPT and on the printer UI respond and click the Letter-Portrait icon and select 20lb paper.

Then in check printing software, we select MPT as Paper Source, click Paper Source Info, click Retrieve Paper Source Info which shows Letter-Portrait paper 20 lbs, click Close, click OK, click Print and the checks unexpectedly go to Drawer 1.

The process is both overly-complicated and does not work as expected.

Even the status of paper "Loaded" is inaccurate if paper is removed from the MPT or Drawer1 and the Retrieve Paper Source Info button is clicked.

What is the workaround here?

[Darius]

Hi BruceTexas.

The Get Paper Source Information list does not display the paper settings for the source you've already selected.  It displays a list of the paper settings registered on the printer itself to each paper source. 

From your description, you only have Drawer 1 registered, which is to "Letter-Portrait 20 lb."  When you select "Letter-Portrait 20 lb" in the Get Paper Source Information list, you're telling the driver to change the paper source to the one registered with 20 lb letter-size paper in Portrait orientation, which in this case is Drawer 1.

If you've already set the Paper Source manually to the Multipurpose Tray (MPT), it will feed from the Multipurpose Tray until otherwise changed.  It will attempt to use the paper settings specified either elsewhere in the settings or, depending on the program, specified in the program from which you are printing.

If you need immediate assistance with this issue, please contact us using the numbers and information at http://Canon.us/ContactLI

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[astrorudy]

What a terrible design. Choosing a paper source should be straight forward, but as said, it is over complicated! I cannot find anywhere where to directly choose the paper source drawer! Also, when i try to print via wifi on my computer, the printer will not print until I go over to the printer in another room and have to push a  tray displayed. So each time I want to print, I have to manually push the black or color button to print! The designers have made this machine overly complicated! I won't buy a cannon again!

[Hector]

Hello astrorudy,

We would be happy to assist with the paper tray setting issue that you are having. The issue you are describing can be caused if the printer driver is not correctly installed or by the settings in the printer driver. To assist further with selecting the paper source, we would need some additional information. If you could reply to the questions below, we can assist further.

1. What version of the Mac or Windows operating system are you using on your computer?
2. What size and type of paper are you trying to print on and which tray are you loading it into?

For help with using the paper trays, you can also contact our support team at 1-800-652-2666. Our agents would be happy to assist.

[EPGC44]

I have a similar problem as the Astrorudy.

with MF743Cdw-

When I add the printer that is connected to my WiFi- no matter what settings - either on the printer or on the machine for preferences and type of paper, the printer ends with an out of paper error for Tray 1 and it requires a push of the button on the printer to choose Tray 1.

I use the drivers that Window supplies automatically when I find the printer on the wifi.

I used the most recent one downloaded from the site on one 2 PC's and that seems to fix the problem, but that makes it harder to use in a widely distribtued wifi environment where sometimes, folks can't run the .exe to install the drivers, etc.

Can you advise if there is a way to work around this or just to make it work when using the standard drivers that windows provides (Canon MF741c/743C)?  The one that works uses Canon MF741c/743C UFRII, which the exe installed.

Thanks for the help!