Turning off auto paper size check on an Epson 4800 Pro inkjet printer

I find that the Epson 4800 is very sensitive to paper size variations. This post tells you how to turn it off, and why you might want to.

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Why would you want to turn off auto paper size checking off?
On the face of it having the printer automatically check that you have loaded the right sized paper every time you print sounds a really helpful idea.

In reality, however, I print a lot of nozzle checks via Harvey Head Cleaner and purge prints via MIS Autoprint to try to keep my printer nozzles clear. I use a stack of copier paper for this and I often find that the odd sheet brings up the “Wrong paper size” warning message, although I can not ever remember the nozzle check failing because of it – the printer does not seem to check for paper size when doing nozzle checks. I also quite often get this problem in a print run using A4 or letter photographic paper. Since this is inconvenient, or in the case of automatic timed printing to reduce nozzle clogs completely counter productive, and since I can not remember every trying to print on the wrong paper size I turn off the auto paper check function.

The risk of course is that the printer will print on the wrong sized paper. If the paper is larger than needed it is just a bit of a waste, but if it is smaller you risk having it print all over the platen – which is, at best, messy.

You could of course just turn it off when you are running in automatic mode and need to be sure it will print each time.

The choice is yours.

How?
The picture below shows the LCD printer display and the various buttons mentioned in the instructions below.
You can turn off the auto paper size checking function by following the button pressing sequence detailed below in the LCD control panel on the printer:

1. With the display saying “Ready”, press the “Menu” button twice – the screen will display “Printer setup” then “ Platen Gap” on the second line of the display


2. Press the “down arrow” button five times – the screen will display “PPR SIZE CHK”


3. Press the “menu” button once - you should see “PPR SIZE CHK, *On”


4. Press the “down arrow” button once - you should see the word “off” on the second line of the screen


5. Press the “menu” button once – an asterisk should appear next to the word “*off”


6. Press the “left arrow” button three times to bring you back to the “Ready” screen

To turn it back on just follow the sequence again, swopping “on” for “off”. Read more...