Help me computer geeks. You're my only hope.

[papabees]

My wife is starting a home business and will be printing 50-100 page documents that have both letter and legal size documents within a single pdf file. I need a printer that has two paper trays that will pull the correct paper size for the original. They may have 5 letter, 3 legal, 2 letter, and then 10 legal, etc.

 

My preference would be a all-in-one but that is not a deal breaker. It can also only be black and white if necessary. I'm trying not to break the bank with this as it will take a few months to get rolling and obviously we want to minimize start up costs. Soooo...Any advice. I contacted Epson and HP and both have told me they don't have anything for me.

[Reaperbryan]

Everything I can think of would require you to print the Letter pages, then feed legal and print the Legal pages, then collate.

[Chrome]

I think you're gonna have problems finding home printers that can do that kind of stuff. They're mostly just set up w/1 loading tray.

[Chrome]

Try Office Max or Office Depot.

 

This one might do the trick. It sounds like it has 2 feeder trays. I'm not sure if you'd consider $350 breaking the bank or not.

 

http://www.officemax.com/technology/printers/laser-all-in-one-printers/product-prod2990326?history=wmzsj1sa|categoryId~10004^categoryName~Technology^[email protected]|categoryId~292^categoryName~Printers^[email protected]|categoryId~cat670008^categoryName~Laser+All-in-One+Printers^[email protected]|prodPage~15^refine~1^[email protected]|prodPage~15^sort~Price+%28Low-High%29^refine~1^position~1^[email protected]|prodPage~15^refine~1^position~16^region~1

[papabees]

Try Office Max or Office Depot.

 

This one might do the trick. It sounds like it has 2 feeder trays. I'm not sure if you'd consider $350 breaking the bank or not.

 

http://www.officemax...ion~16^region~1

 

That might do the trick. I was hoping for about $200 but figured about $300 so $350 is not outside the realm of possibility. You wouldn't think it would be that tough to find.

[vutpakdi]

I think that the Dell 3130cn can come with 2 trays. But, I don't know if it'll pull from both trays in the same document.

 

I have had very good experiences with a previous generation of the 3130cn.

 

Ron

[Stubbdog]

A couple of things to consider...

 

The less the upfront cost of the printer, usually means the higher the long run cost of owning it. Lower cost printers tend to use much smaller ink buckets that have to be replaced more frequent and cost more.

 

I don't know what you expect the monthly print load to be, but I would do a cost compare at 10,000 pages before making a purchase.

 

Also, the same can usually be said laser verses inkjet. Laser tends to have a higher upfront cost but lower overall maintenance and refill cost. But, again it depends on your expected print load.

 

Lastly, depending on where you live, you can find places where you can lease printers with refill contracts. And while its not the cheapest route, it tends to be worth it if you can haggle your way into a good deal. Again, thinking the long term cost, not the up front cost. We worked a deal that included the ink refills at an extremely low rate in exchange for an acceptable monthly maintenance contract fee that also replaces our printer with a new one every so often.

[themudhead]

I agree with Reaperbryan. In my humble experience, your problem is not the printer, it is the document. The computer handles the page size, not the printer.

 

All the pages within a pdf document will print all on one size paper unless you go in and manually print each page from the computer to the printer with its corresponding page size. I don't know of a way to do that automatically in Acrobat/Word/Keynote/Indesign/Quark. Alternatively, you can just print the whole document in the larger paper size and have each page centered within the paper.

[NickT]

I Have been running an HP laserjet 1020 for many years now, it is a reasonable, business grade printer that runs forever on one toner cartridge. it has two try (I don't know about selectivity, but i had to print numerous textbooks for myself and wife, and an avid DM abd CAV player (aka here, here'sCAVr 2 rules and data cards, you are welcome) SO I'd chek the HP site and see what they have now.

[papabees]

Well after talking to numerous manufacturers, the only one i can find that will do what i want is Brother. They claim that all of their printers with dual trays will do it as it's written into their driver's. The others I spoke to said I was out of luck.

[Cadaver]

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