How to Select a Printer Tray with Tray Selector

Tray Selector makes it simple for you to select a printer tray profile for your documents. Once you have installed Tray Selector, the next time you open Word you will see the Tray Selector toolbar in the top left corner. This consists of two buttons, Main and Settings.

To configure Tray Selector for one-click printing, click on Settings.

The Tray Selector dialogue box appears. From here you can configure up to six different Tray Selector profiles. Each profile, once configured, appears as a button in the Tray Selector toolbar, allowing single-click printing of your chosen printer tray selections.

Here are some examples of common Tray Selector profiles:

Letterhead
Every page is printed on Letterhead paper.

Letterhead 1^st
The first page is printed on Letterhead, with subsequent pages printed on plain paper.

Plain
All pages are printed on plain paper.

You can also configure Tray Selector to select printer trays containing coloured paper, envelopes and even labels – all with the click of a single button.

How do I configure a printer tray selection profile?

Once you have clicked on Settings, click in the Profile Name box. Now type in a descriptive name for your printer tray selection profile that means something to you. For this example, we are going to use the name Letterhead 1^st, as we want a button that, in one click, will print the 1^st page on letterhead and every other page on blank paper.

Ensure that the Show in Toolbar tick box is checked (this only happens by default in profile 1).

Under Select Printer, click on the drop-down arrow and select the printer to which you wish the printer tray selection profile configured (all printers you have installed will appear in the dropdown list). The available paper trays for that printer now appear under the First Page and Other Pages boxes.

In the First Page box, select the printer tray from which you want the paper for the first page of your letter/document to come. In this example, our headed paper is stored in the Manual Paper Feed – yours may be different.

In the Other Pages box, select the printer tray from which you want the subsequent pages of your letter/document to come. In this example, we want plain paper for our other pages, which is stored in our Paper Input Bin – again, yours may be different.

How do I use the Tray Selector button(s) I have created?

Whenever you want to print a letter or document with the printer tray selections you have set up, create your letter or document as normal, but, instead of printing using your usual method, simply click on the appropriate Tray Selector profile button. Now, with a single click of a button, your letter or document prints out on the paper you have specified in your profile.

How do I set up additional Tray Selector profiles?

You can have up to six different Tray Selector profiles for any printer tray selections that you may require. Each of these profiles creates a button in Word to let you print to your chosen combination of paper trays with a single mouse click.

To create an additional Tray Selector profile, click on Settings again, then the Profile 2 tab, and then follow the instructions above to configure your profile. Note that if you have more than one printer, you can allocate different profiles to different printers – just select the appropriate printer from the drop-down menu.

N.B. Make sure for any subsequent profiles that you check the Show in Toolbar tick box.

This example shows a Tray Selector profile called Plain that is configured to print to plain paper on both the first page and other pages. You can obviously name and configure your profiles in any way you wish.

Word now shows two Tray Selector buttons for one-click printing –

How do I make changes to a Tray Selector Profile?

From time to time, you may need to make changes to your existing printer tray selection profiles; for example, you may add a new printer to your system. To make any changes, click on Settings, then select the tab of the profile name you wish to make a change to. Make your changes, click on OK, and your changes will be effective immediately.

How do I print more than one copy in each printer tray selection profile?

You may have noticed that in each profile tab there is a section that allows you to print a number of different copies of the same document (see the picture below). By clicking the + and - buttons you can change the number of copies to print. Clicking the profile button now will print this number of copies.

What if my printer is duplex/two-sided enabled – can I print the first two pages to a particular tray?

Yes, you can. By default, Tray Selector will send the first page only to the first selected paper tray and all other pages to a different tray. You can, however, change it so that it will print more than one page to the first tray and the remaining pages to a different tray. To do this, simply click the + and - buttons shown in the picture below. For duplex printing, set this option to 2.

Many of our users use Tray Selector with duplex printers. In order to do this, they often add a new printer in the "Add Printers" tab which points to the same physical printer and then name it "....duplex". They then access the properties of this printer, and turn on the duplex printing so that all pages to this printer will be printed duplex. In Tray Selector, the duplex (and non-duplex) versions of the printer will show in the Select Printer drop-down list, so you can configure profiles to either print duplex or not. This is a very powerful feature of Tray Selector, giving the user single-click access to either duplex or non-duplex printing.

If you are printing duplex to letter-headed paper, there is one important step you must carry out. Due to the way that the paper is routed from the paper bin to the stacked output, almost all duplex printers must print on the back side of the page first. This is then flipped over and the front side is printed, and lastly it is output to the collection tray. This means that headed paper must be inserted in the paper bin the “wrong way round” compared with how it is normally placed in the bin if printing non-duplex. This means that if you are printing to headed paper and the paper is placed in the duplex position in the bin, you must always print duplex (even if you only want to print one page).

If you want to set up two Tray Selector button profiles – one to print duplex and another to print single-sided on the same printer – then you must make a few changes to your system first. We have produced an online tutorial to explain how to do this here.

What if my document is a mail merge?

It is quite simple to print a mail merge document using Tray Selector. Set up your mail merge document in Word and preview it to ensure it is correct. You can use the back and forward buttons that look like this:

Word 2003:   Word 2007:

To make sure your data is correct. At this point do not click any of the buttons (shown below) –

Word 2003: Word 2007:

– to merge the document to a new document printer or fax as you would normally do. Instead, click your Tray Selector button. Tray Selector will automatically recognise that the document is a mail merge and display the dialogue box shown below:

If you click ‘Yes’, then each merged letter of your document will be printed using your Tray Selector settings. Clicking ’No’ will just print the current document (unmerged), and clicking ‘Cancel’ will print nothing.

Notice that in mail merge mode, Tray Selector will print just one copy of your document, even if you have set a different number of copies to be printed, and it will not print any extra advanced copies.

Advanced Copies Options

Tray Selector allows you to print a second print job to another printer with all the usual printer tray selection options. Using this method, you can set up various advanced printing options – for example printing your documents to a PDF file and as a hard copy to a printer – with a single click. To achieve this, click the "Advanced Copies..." button (as shown below). A new dialogue box will open allowing you to select another printer, tray combination and number of copies to print. By default this feature is turned off for new profiles by setting the number of copies to 0.

What if I forget which printer button is set to which printer profile?

You might forget the number of copies each profile prints or which printer it sends copies to. For a quick reminder, just place your mouse over the profile name and it will show this information as shown below.

Can Tray Selector print an envelope as part of its profile?

Yes. Click the settings button and select the profile from which you want to print an envelope. Click the button called "Envelopes". A dialogue box as shown below will appear:

Check the box to enable envelope printing and select the printer you want the envelope to be sent to. Also select an option to state if you want the envelope dialogue box to be shown before or after the main printing. Click OK.

Now, when the profile button is pressed it will also show the normal Word envelopes dialogue box allowing you to print an envelope too. Note that the printer used for envelope printing will be the one you selected. The tray used can be changed within the envelope dialogue box, and once you have selected the printer tray you want to use, this will be remembered for all future envelope printing jobs.

Tray Selector can split up a document into segments of X pages long and print each part according to settings

Some users have documents which repeat every X pages and they want to treat each part as a separate document, e.g. printing the first page to one tray, then the next X-1 pages to another tray, then to go back to the first tray again. To do this, just select the length of each segment as shown in the image below. Tray Selector will then split the document up into segments of this size and print according to your settings. Please note splitting is only done for the main print settings, not the extra copies.