# Canon Pixma iP4850 paper source problem



## Ian H.Thain (Feb 14, 2011)

My new Canon Pixma iP4850 seems to be incapable of printing from any paper source except the rear tray.

The "manual" (such as it is) says that photo quality paper has to go in the rear tray, and plain paper has to go in the cassette, and that the printer adjusts its ink flow automatically on that basis (no user control over that being available or possible). 

OK. As most of my printing is correspondence, most of my paper needs to come from the cassette, in which I have loaded plain paper.

In the printer driver dialogue I have set the paper source as "cassette".
In Ms Word it doesn't seem to make any difference whether I set "printer settings" or "cassette" as the paper source; regardless of what I tell it to do, the printer ALWAYS tries to print from the rear tray, and if it's empty it tells me to load it with plain paper (this despite the manual's insistance that the rear tray is for photo paper only!).

How can I force the printer to use the cassette? And how can I make the cassette its default paper source?

Very grateful thanks for any help. I have tried all options short of suicide. :upset:

Ian


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## Ian H.Thain (Feb 14, 2011)

I have just found the answer to my own question!

To ensure that the iP4850 prints from the cassette tray:-

In the printer driver which appears when you select Print, under


Properties | Quick setup tab | Check that "cassette" is specified in Paper Source
Properties | Main tab | Check that "cassette" is specified in Paper Source
Properties | Page setup tab | Print Options button | Check that the "Disable the paper source setting of the application source software" box *is checked*. 

Regardless of the fact that you have selected "cassette" as the paper source in the application software (e.g. Ms Word), you need to disable it. 



Either Word sends the wrong codes to the printer, or the printer scrambles the codes it receives. But whichever of the two it is, the printer then ignores the cassette and gets (or tries to get) its paper from the rear tray.

Disabling the application's ability to control the printer seems to fix the problem.

Hope this may help somebody else! :sigh:

Ian


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## jserre (Feb 28, 2011)

Had very same problem with Canon Pixma MP640.

Your solution helped me fix the problem. Seems it came from MS Word 2010.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, I was despaired!

Jérôme

ray:


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## colm21 (Feb 28, 2011)

I have a Canon Pixma MP160 and the paper in the printer keeps jamming, I may just get a new printer model or switch brands cause its really annoying


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## Ian H.Thain (Feb 14, 2011)

It's difficult to offer much in the way of a suggestion without seeing closely what's going on. Is the paper veering sideways as it goes through the printer? Have you tried different thicknesses and sizes of paper? (Surface finish can sometimes make a difference). Does it always stick at the same point during a print? Is there perhaps a conflict between the size of paper your are actually using, and the size of paper the software thinks you are using? Is something somewhere generating a signal which tells the print driver to abort a print job? Is a cover-open microswitch going intermittent? For that matter, are all your cables, plugs and sockets in good condition? A loose connector somewhere can have you pulling your hair out. Is there an accumulation of paper dust obscuring a photo cell's light path? Just a few ideas (and it's probably none of them)!


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## Rimmer100 (Mar 27, 2011)

Many thanks for posting this. My parents were experiencing the same problem on a Windows 7 x64 computer on Word 2007. Your fix worked, but I have also e-mailed Canon support about it as we shouldn't need to do that to get it to work.

Something a bit glitchy is happening there and as much as I know that Microsoft Software can be buggy, I think this is more likely to be a driver issue.

Strangely, printing from notepad to the cassette worked straight away...


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## zootsuit (Nov 20, 2011)

It isn't just Word that has the cassette loading problem. It's all Microsoft apps. Apparently, Canon's QA dept. is staffed by nitwits who don't test their products against those apps. Maybe it's something to do with Japan. I had a similar problem with a Brother MFC.


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## jcpedersen (Mar 4, 2012)

Thank you Ian for pointing out the solution to this problem (I have a pixma 640 too).
Just a small correction: When you have done no. 3 (Disabling the paper source setting of the application), you don't have to do no. 1 and 2. Setting the paper source to "Automatically select" (the default) is OK.

Btw. The problem only occurs with MS Office it seems. When I print the same document(s) in openOffice or LibreOffice there is *no* problem.


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## grickle2 (Aug 10, 2014)

I have just changed over from PC to Mac. Same printer I no longer get the option to choose source for paper it kist takes it from the cassette. There's got to be a solution.


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## jonnieb57 (Jun 9, 2016)

Thanks so very much! My MG5350 had the same problem, and your solution fixed it, just like that!




Ian H.Thain said:


> I have just found the answer to my own question!
> 
> To ensure that the iP4850 prints from the cassette tray:-
> 
> ...


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