That I know. I misspoke in my post. The problem comes in printing envelopes with the company return address and logo on them.
Do they go into the printer stamp end first, or stamp end last?
Do it the wrong way and the address is upside down.
My printer has a button that kills all ‘print jobs’ 
You try it once so you can see how the print comes out from how you lay it down, and then you tape an envelope in the correct position to the wall with a note to yourself - “Envelopes go in this way”. One envelope spent, and the problem is solved for every subsequent envelope.
For plain sheets of paper you simply mark one corner with a pen and remember the orientation when you put it in and when it came out to determine which side and which direction the printer prints.
Even professional print shops will do stuff like this.
Actually I made labels for these things and placed them on the printer in the correct places. Looks more professional.
It’s hardly super niche. A fair number of applications need my real first name, thanks to the fact that a bunch of nutcases flew some planes into the WTC and the Pentagon a dozen or so years back. And there are always hassles when the places where I use my middle name as my first name come across the places where I use my real first name.
And have I mentioned that I’m periodically required to use my first name in my signature, because it’s my “real” first name - and I’ve completely lost the ability to write in cursive, other than my signature - which has been strictly middle-and-last name since grade school?
That’s the point: it wasn’t fixable before computers, but it’s eminently fixable now. And it wasn’t a problem before computers, really, because nobody was bringing all the pieces of paper together.
Because their entire company is built around taking problems that can be solved by a little googling, kludge stickers, and educating every person on the planet…and making them work the way you’d expect instead, so that none of that is necessary.
On the Windows version of PP, it’s under the ‘set up show’ menu option - and it’s very straightforward - you just pick what you want to see on which display.
Cool, so how do apple printers solve the envelope problem?
I can definitely say there is not an ounce of truth to this. These sensors aren’t in place because they aren’t trivial and because most people don’t want to pay for them.
Suppose the printing company did add these sensors. When an envelope is put in the wrong way the printer would need to reject the envelope and ask the user to put it in the right way. But not only can the envelope be put in with the flap down when it should be up, it can also be put in on the right when it should be on the left. Now the printer needs to know in which orientation the labeling for the envelope was created. How do you solve that issue?
If a user puts the envelope in the printer the wrong way they have wasted a $0.03 envelope. The sensors and other development necessary to do what you are asking is likely going to run at least $0.50/printer. In a highly competitive low end printer market most people just aren’t willing to spend the extra money on features like that.
The main problem I see with doing this is, that so many printers now are network capable, and if you are on my network, I am going to be extremely angry, when I print out my report, go to the printer to find, that you have canceled all print jobs, and cleared queue, because you clicked print all, instead of print current page, and said OOPs, let me fix this.
So for that reason, I don’t like the empty queue command from a PC. But cancel jobs from this user or machine… that I would go for
Follow the money - the printers are like razors - the ink/toner is the blade portion of equation.
To the OP - I share your pain and age group. I preview everything and sweat the printer options and defaults each time. I also have paper and envelope examples taped to the wall - you can’t expect me to remember everything at my age.
From the subject line, I thought that this was going to be about things like computability or P vs NP.
Agreed. Real pain in the butt.:dubious:
Many, many years ago, a friend and I transferred the entire contents of a CD over dial-up (I had a burner, my friend did not, it turned into quite a project). We used the DCC feature of this thing called IRC (Internet Relay Chat, I think you can still get to it) that allowed us to move files directly between our computers (I think the IRC servers were not even directly involved in the transfers).
These days, though, you do not even need to own a server: you can just set your own computer up as a web server, find your dynamic IP at the moment, and provide a URL based on that to the person wanting the file. You just have to put the file in a proper Apache or whatever directory where they can get to it. Not the easiest way to go, and very at-the-moment-sensitive (unless you have static IP), but simpler that using some sort of cloudy thing. I would also be careful with security, since these kind of things might get sniffed out by hackerz.
Apple solved that too. It will be in the Apple glasses release - lets you look at everything in a less complex fashion.
I thought the effect of the Apple glasses was to make you believe you were somewhere other than where you actually are.
Both “problems” were solved by 1976, when I first used computers.
- Operator console cancels print queue. Person feeding printer removes expensive form (if present) and runs out the rest of the job on green bar.
- Your output DD specified FORM=nnnn, where 'nnnn" was envelopes stuck on fan-fold stock, which was fed into the impact printer like any other form - the program knew to first print 3-4 envelopes with all “X”'s in the lines - the operator used those to align the form with the printer (after changing the paper tape which controlled what the carriage control character really did (IBM 1403 printer).