I have a Dell 3115cn on my home network. It has the optional 500
sheet paper tray. I run a small business from home and have macros
set up in Word to print file copies on yellow paper held in tray one
and the top copy from white paper in tray 2. There has been a long
stand problem with this set up in Excel where randomly Excel would
refuse to print from anything other than tray 1 which contained yellow
paper.

The problem seems to be something to do with having the paper tray
paper size set to auto. When both trays are set to A4 size, the
problem with Excel goes away.

Unfortunately this solution gives another problem which is that I
cannot use the printer as a copying. When I try the display says
"Illegal operation. Cannot use with custom paper size" If I set the
tray paper sizes back to auto, copying is restored but the Excel paper
tray selection issue reappears.

Anyone have a solution?

NickR <(E-Mail Removed)> writes:

> I have a Dell 3115cn on my home network. /../ There has been a long
> stand problem with this set up in Excel where randomly Excel would
> refuse to print from anything other than tray 1 /../
>
> The problem seems to be something to do with having the paper tray
> paper size set to auto. When both trays are set to A4 size, the
> problem with Excel goes away.
>
> Unfortunately this solution gives another problem which is that I
> cannot use the printer as a copying. When I try the display says
> "Illegal operation. Cannot use with custom paper size" If I set the
> tray paper sizes back to auto, copying is restored but the Excel paper
> tray selection issue reappears.

Hi, I see you've tried Google, and other forums, so far without
success. I don't have a solution either, but it might help to duplicate
the problem on my side (I have access to Excel 2003 and WinXP 32-bit
although my main OS is linux).

1) I will try installing the Dell 3115cn driver: it might help if you
can provide the driver version number you are using.

2) I obviously set the printer connection to FILE since I do not have a
Dell 3115cn, but only want to check the printjobs. To help experiment,
you might try that too and compare what the printjobs contain in terms
of options for papersize and so on.

3) maybe make sure you set the papersize defaults correctly in the
printer settings; you might have missed a couple of printer-driver
specific settings?

4) It could be that Excel used Letter size for auto, but for some reason
the printer does not understand this (missing capital or something
similarly simple but stupid?). In any case, parsing a printjob is often
the easiest way to discover what is going on.
--
Gernot Hassenpflug