Bother MFC-7860DW - Printing Envelopes

February 7, 2016

I needed to print an envelope and of course this is one of those things I hardly do, if at all. And if you work in IT, you know how interesting printing envelopes can be. So I thought I sacrifice a few envelopes so that I could do this small write up not only so that I can refresh my brain but also put it in writing just in case I forget again.

Now here are the steps.
1. If you don't want the envelope to get creased, you need to open the back door and make sure you have space for the envelope to go out the back and not the top of the printer.

2. You need to push down the two green tabs on both sides of this printer in the back. This is no fun of course if you're printer is in a tight spot which is most of the time. And yes, that sounds a bit backwards when you think about it but that's just how this one works.

Here's the link to this information. Yes, I still had to go look this up since it's been a while since I needed to print one of these but it's always good to know.
http://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc7860dw_all&faqid=faq00000231_037

 These are the green tabs on this printer.

 Here's a closeup. It's the inner larger green piece.

Here's the other side. There is a mirror on the wall behind my printer so I used that to take the pictures and it came in handy when trying to see these.

3. Put your envelope in the front manual tray. In my case I can only do one at a time. Every printer is different so check to make sure you have it place correctly or it will print upside down or worst, on the wrong side. Then just adjust the side tabs for the correct envelop.

4. Print your envelope. I will assume you have all that set up correctly in your program to keep this short. This is just about the same no matter what you use anyway. If not, just insert an envelope, I like to make a new document so that it can be saved separately in case I need to print it again. Then choose the correct size and print it.

 Here are the creases you will get if you don't put the tabs down. I put a few envelopes through and I kept getting this until I put the tabs down. I also use the top and back and still got the same thing. So those tabs are key on this all in one. Although it's not completely gone as you can see on the top right, it is definitely almost gone. That's the best I got with these envelops. These are a bit thin and from the 99 cent store, so thicker or better envelops may give you better results.

It's also important to note that after you're done, once you close the rear door, those green tabs go back up and you will need to do this again next time you have to print an envelop. Yes, nice and painful, but it is what it is.

The only thing is that for whatever reason printing an envelop is still giving me a blank page even though there is nothing there since it's a new file. Again, it is what it is.

One thing I like to do is once I figure out how the paper, envelop and scans are done on a printer, I usually make labels and stick them to the printer so that anyone using it can follow them. This usually saves all the guess work later on so you don't have to keep starting over again next time you need to do something like this. Every printer is a bit different and this helps tremendously. You will save yourself a bunch of calls too.