Discovering your Canon TS6420a inkjet printer isn’t immediately compatible with Print On Cardstock can be frustrating. Like many users, I found this out after purchasing the printer and attempting to load 67lb cardstock into the rear tray. The printer’s auto-detect feature politely, but firmly, informs you that the loaded media is “incompatible.” After some initial failed attempts and a bit of experimentation, I stumbled upon a workaround to print on cardstock from the rear tray.
While this method worked for me, it comes with a significant caveat:
⚠️ Warning: Proceed at your own risk. This method is not officially supported by Canon and may potentially damage your printer or void your warranty. ⚠️
This workaround is based on using an Android device and the Canon print plugin. Here are the steps I followed to successfully print on cardstock:
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Paper Loading and Setting: When loading your cardstock into the rear tray, the crucial first step is to select “Matte Photo Paper” as the media type in your printer settings. This initial setting seems to be key to tricking the printer.
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Initiate Printing from Your App: From the application containing the image or document you wish to print on cardstock, select the share icon. Then, choose the Canon Print plugin to proceed with printing.
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Access Print Settings: Once in the Canon Print plugin interface, navigate to “Print settings” to customize your output.
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Media Type and Paper Size Adjustment – The Key Steps:
- Confirm that the “Media type” is set to “Matte Photo Paper,” as you selected earlier.
- This is the most important part: Paper Size. To force the printer to utilize the rear tray for your print on cardstock job (especially if you’re using standard letter-sized cardstock, which might default to the paper drawer), you need to manually select a paper size that is similar but not identical to your actual cardstock size. For my letter-sized cardstock, choosing “8”x10″” worked effectively. This discrepancy in paper size seems to be the trigger that directs the printer to pull from the rear tray, even with cardstock loaded.
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Print! After adjusting these settings, initiate the print job.
It’s important to note that my experience with print on cardstock using this workaround has been limited to monochrome printing so far. The monochrome prints have come out crisp and clear without any smearing issues. Color printing has not been tested yet and might yield different results.
Furthermore, be aware that because you are instructing the printer to print on a paper size that doesn’t precisely match your actual cardstock dimensions, there might be slight discrepancies in the printed output relative to the page boundaries, especially if your design is very close to the edges of the paper.
While this is just one user’s experience and might not work in every situation or for every user, I sincerely hope this information proves helpful to others struggling to print on cardstock with their Canon TS6420a and finding limited resources online. It’s unfortunate that this workaround was discovered after I needed it most urgently, but hopefully, it will assist someone else in a timely manner.
