Canon IP4600 won't feed from rear tray.

It turns out that if you read the documentation VERY carefully it says that "if the application program specifies 8.5x11 plain paper and that is what is loaded in the front cassette you cannot print from the rear tray". It turns out that this is true even if you go to the printer driver and specify "rear tray" manually. The driver disregards the setting. You can force printing plain paper from the rear tray by going to the Canon "My Printer" icon and forcing ALL printing from the rear tray. If you do this, remember to change it back. You can also print plain paper from the rear tray if you specify the "allocation" option and the paper from the front cassette runs out. You can always print from the rear tray if the application that created the print job specifies something other than 8.5x11 without resorting to the forced override, e.g. printing a .jpg or .gif or something from an application like Paintshop or Printshop, etc.

Same issue with the IP4700, except I will swear it USED to print from the rear tray whenever I manually selected rear tray, even if paper type was "plain"! I run into this problem with labels- if only there was "label" for paper type that might work, but the only proper choice is "plain paper".

I wanted to add some info about the IP4600.

I had an IP5000. Great printer, but it wore out. I looked for the closest thing I could find (IP5000 had been discontinued) and was directed to the IP4600.

I am extremely disappointed. I do a lot of printing and I have to constantly change paper sizes. I can't take time to "force" things or shuffle trays all day. Not only is the driver software that forces small pieces from the top and full sheets from the bottom a stupid idea, but it doesn't even work consistently. There are certain sizes that are NOT full size (like my preprinted checks) that the IP4600 insists on printing out of the bottom. Even when I try to fool it by putting in other paper sizes than the actual paper size, it sometimes takes many tries to get the alignment and for it to accept the desired tray.

My solution? I combed the net for over 2 months looking for another new IP5000, hoping a dealer would have one in a back room. I finally found one. I am extremely happy. It prints any size I want from any tray pretty much flawlessly every time. I simply select and it prints. No frustration, no messing with trays, no wasted paper, no unexpected surprises, no printer driver forcing the user to use the rear feed or trays in limited ways.

I know that hunting for a discontinued item isn't a solution per se, but perhaps if enough IP4600 owners complained to Canon that changing the printer drivers from the IP5000 style to the ridiculous "force the user to do something it shouldn't and which the software doesn't fully support", then perhaps they will bring back the IP5000 (I don't care what they call it, just give consumers a decent printer or I'm not buying Canon again).