Peter said:
Yes I have this snag as well with a HP deskjet 3845. I can suggest the
following fixes.
Print the envelopes in landscape, ie with the short edge fed into the
printer.
Try with the flap tucked in,
Try with the flap opened right out to make the thing a bit thinner
Try a different envelope. I use WH Smith White peel-and seal DL size code
number 11529931. These work ok 19 times out of 20, and I just feed them in
landscape mode as they come out of the packet. No more than 3 in the feed
tray at once though. The occasional failures are not perfect but ok to
send.
Sometimes pre-curling the envelope has helped, but that's an art not a
science to get it just so.
This is not a criticism of the OP - You and I learned a valuable lesson.
All printers are not able to easily handle printing envelopes. For my last
laser printer purchase I took envelopes and card stock to a store that had
several printers set up for demonstration purposes. They all print a test
page without the need for a computer hookup. For single envelope printing
you need a straight paper path (auxilliary paper feed that drops down in
front) and an opening in the back so the paper doesn't have to make a U-turn
to get to the output tray. Some printers have output trays in the front, so
the latter capability is not required. If multiple envelopes or special
printing needs (i.e. batch check printing) are required you need a drop down
tray in front that can handle more than one sheet at a time, and for
envelopes or heavy stock a drop down tray in the back that stacks the print
output. There are other printer configurations that are different from what
I described, but the bottom line is that you need a straight paper path, the
capability for the printer to deal with stock thicker than standard 20 to 24
pound paper, and in the case of a laser printer, a fuser assembly that will
"set" the toner on thicker materials.
When I purchased my first laser printer, an HP IIP, I soon found that it
didn't do envelopes without severely curving and wrinkling them. I opted
for window envelopes instead so my letters could be formatted to show the
mailing address. In my estimation it was more attractive then labels, but I
would rather have been able to print the address on the envelope. I just
retired an HP 5P that still works perfectly and purchased an HP P3005
laserjet. I would have rather spent less. There were laser printers that
ranged from less than $100 to thousands. I started by eliminating the
printers that didn't have a straight paper path, an aux paper tray that
would hold multiple sheets or envelopes, or an output tray that would hold
multiple printed pages or envelopes. I then tested the remaining printers
with the card stock I sometimes use and with envelopes. I started with the
least expensive unit and found that all of them failed until I got to the HP
3005. Since they only had the unit with networking and an additional paper
tray in stock I had to order a basic unit online. I now have it set up and
it works great. Except for loading the image data a bit slowly, it
virtually spits out printed pages in rapid fire mode!
