At wits' end with Brother 5200DW Printer! HELP?!

**EDIT: I online chatted with Brother tech support. Their suggestion was to watch the video about how to set up my printer for dual sizes, and how to install proper drivers. Well, all of that was done PRIOR to hollering for help, so that did no good. I uninstalled and re-installed the printer and got updated driver (see below). You guys, it literally worked while I was online with tech - it printed 1 letter and 1 legal in succession, perfectly. I disconnected from support and went to print this loan package and the frigging thing started cutting off / sliding down the text on the legal stuff.

Hereā€™s a rundown of the factors in the situation:

Running Mac OS Catalina 10.15.4
Using Adobe Reader, current updated version
Printer connected via USB, no wifi setup yet.
Printer Drivers: Using the BR Script version, not CUPS, which was tech supportā€™s only useful hint that I hadnā€™t tried yet.
I downloaded Brotherā€™s printer app from Apple Store, and it literally gives you one choice for what files to print. PHOTO. I canā€™t open PDFs with it.

Thatā€™s literally EVERYTHING the internet says to do, and still no go. Iā€™m about ready to just quit working altogether. Thatā€™s how aggravated I am. WHY CANā€™T ANYTHING JUST FRIGGING WORK THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO?!?!?!?!

I replaced my Brother MVC 2710DW recently, ONLY because I wanted dual tray capability. Bought the HL-L5200DW as I saw it recommended here a number of times as a reliable workhorse.

IT CUTS OFF THE TOP OF EVERY $%&-ING LEGAL SIZE PAGE. Every page. Every time. My husband and I have both crawled the internet looking for reasons / fixes. Nothing. I even sent it back to Staples and had them send me a new one, thinking it was a glitchy one-off. Nope. I just hooked up my brand new one and itā€™s doing the SAME *%#*ing thing.

I am using it with a connected USB, as I want to save the butt-pain of wifi setup until I get this problem under control. So itā€™s not glitchy wifi. Iā€™m on a Mac, but I donā€™t really think that affects the printerā€™s behavior in this matter. Does it?

Iā€™ve got Letter size in tray 1, and Legal in Tray 2. I have gone through all the setup protocols and selected the paper size for individual trays. I have swapped it and reversed things, thinking it was just Tray 2 misbehaving, and nope. Thatā€™s not it.

HELP!! Can anyone offer guidance / experiences on this problem?

Not reallyā€¦never owned one, BUT have read a lot of similar complaints about Brother. #1-- Macs donā€™t play well with Adobe. That could be your problem. Other than that, I understand that if you call Brother, they will patiently walk you thru the legal/letter setup. I also have read that some really techy-types somehow download Windows to their Mac and work w/Adobe thru that. Good luckā€¦

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Thanks - I hear that gripe about Macs, but I never had a problem when I was doing it one size at a time from adobe. I thought getting a dual tray was going to HELP my stress level, not bring it up 20 notches. LOL!

My friend has a Mac computer and she had the same problem, and like the first reply a computer tech installed windows on her computer and it worked just fine. Wished I could be more help.

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I have this printer, and the problem is in the Adobe software. Every time I print legal size with Reader or Acrobat it shifts the text down about a third of the page cutting off the bottom third of the text, but only if I print more than one page at a time. This happens whether or not I print letter size pages at the same time, so even if itā€™s just two legal size pages by themselves, the second is cut off.

If I print through Preview It doesnā€™t cut off the pages, however Preview doesnā€™t switch between legal and letter sizes automatically. So I have go through the documents and print any consecutive letter size (i.e. Page 1-5), then the legal sized pages (Page 6-8), then the letter sized (Page 8-16), and so on. Itā€™s a pain, but until Adobe fixes it, I canā€™t trust the Adobe software. I havenā€™t tried any other PDF software, there may be a third party application that prints correctly and automatically switches between sizes.

Sorry I donā€™t have an easy solution, Iā€™ll update if I learn anything new.

I had the same problem and got some advice from another notary who helped my fix this. There are two different drivers available for Brother printers. One is the CUP driver (donā€™t use this one) the other is BR-Script 3 (Use this one). You may need to dismount the printer and the CUP driver if thatā€™s what youā€™re using. Set up a ā€˜new printerā€™ using the Script-3 drivers.

Once driver is installed pick a default page size in the MAC utilities, then set the Print utility in Adobe to allow Adobe to select the paper size.

You will also need to set up the printer telling it which tray has which paper size. You do this using the menu on the Printer itself. The paper work that came with your printer will have these details.

So far this has worked for me. Good luck.

Are you using a Mac? Because YES. Same exact thing here. Printing multiple pages, it will print the first of the legal size fine, and then the rest of them are ā€œfalling offā€ the page.

My solution is just going to be to run out and buy a cheap Windows based laptop, and just use it as my printer laptop. I canā€™t take this sh*t anymore. Thank you so much for validating that itā€™s ā€œnot just me.ā€

Thank you for this feedback!

So, I have already uninstalled & re-installed it with the BR Script 3 driver and not the CUPS, and have done the printer setup naming tray 1 as letter, and 2 as legal. The only thing I havenā€™t tried is your second recommendation. So Iā€™ll run through that today and see if anything catches, but I doubt it.

My solution is just going to be to run out and buy a cheap Windows laptop and just use it for my printing jobs. Seems to be the easiest thing to do, though it essentially makes my $330 printer a $600 printer, having to shell out the extra cash. At this point, WHATEVER. I just need it to work.

Thanks so much for your reply and these hints. They are very gratefully accepted!

Most of the time I read complaints about Brother printers, never see any about HP, Canon once in a great while. Maybe people should take that into consideration before buying a new printer.

I have been on the phone with Brother and Adobe around this. Here is the work around I have been told to do and it works:

In Acrobat open your package and click ā€˜organize pagesā€™ then rotate the pages 180 degrees and then print!!! It is the only way it works and I have a newer Brother just a year old!!! Adobe says it is Brothersā€™ problem and Brother says it is Adobe. Brother support is the one that told me about the work around!!!

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HP has horrific CS. I will. never buy HP again

Well, itā€™s not the solution for everyone, but I gave in. I bought a cheap windows laptop to use just for notary printing. Hooked it up, printed a package for a signing Friday andā€¦boom. Everything printed perfectly.

Looks like it is definitely a Mac thing, in the end. Which stinks, because I love my Macs and theyā€™ve never let me down. Except for this.

Thanks, everyone, for your input and all the fixes youā€™ve shared!

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Iā€™ve owned HP printers for the last 30+ years and only recall one instance were I needed to call customer support. The software just runs fine on PCs, maybe MACs have problems.

Fear Notā€¦
Iā€™ve been a CSA for 15 years. I also own a Brother 5200 DWT Dual Tray Printer. I own both a MAC and a PC that I have in my office and use Adobe Acrobat DC on a monthly subscription Why a PC you ask? Because no one will tell you that MAC OS is not compatible with Adobeā€¦PERIOD! All my loan packages have letter/legal pages throughout. I always download the loan packages to my PC, fire up Adobe, check-mark the ā€œfitā€ box as well as printer box that says ā€œchoose paper size according to .PDFā€. Walla perfect package every time. Youā€™ll commit mental suicide if you keep trying to get your MAC to properly rub Adobe.

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I have major problems with my Brother printer that I just bought 1 month ago. It keeps telling me that it canā€™t find my computer. I have spoken with tech support, uninstalled and reinstalled the software with the disc 3 times and still nothing. So my Brother printer is basically sitting there as decoration because I can not, for the life of me, figure out what is wrong. Can anyone offer any suggestions? And I have an HP computer thatā€™s 6 months old.

I have the same Brother printer, hl-l 5200ddwt and I had that problem yesterday. Iā€™ll tell you how I solved it. I went to brother.solutions.com. You will have to input the model. Then I read that you have to install Full Driver & Software Package (recommended).
Now my printer is connected to my PC. Itā€™s working fine. I hope this helps. Let me know if it works.

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Thanks. Your suggestion is one of the bazillion that I had already gone through. Full uninstall and re-install with the BR-Script 3 drivers. The problem ended up being that Adobe and Mac are apparently mortal enemies and just will NOT cooperate. I gave up and bought a Windows based laptop and solved the problem entirely.

This why abobe will not work with Mac. Steve made this quote about Adobe flash back on Apr 29, 2010

Steve Jobs has defended Appleā€™s decision not to allow Adobeā€™s Flash technology on the iPhone, iPod and iPad - and cited a series of reasons why he thinks letting Flash onto mobile devices is a bad idea, including security, battery life and user experience. ā€¦ ā€œAdobeā€™s Flash products are 100% proprietary,ā€ he responds. This pissed Adobe off. Mac should talk, Apple O/S is completely 100% proprietary, same with the hardware. PC wins again. Thanks Steveā€¦

Get a PC Laptop. When I first started I had a MAC - I needed about an hour to print docs because it never worked right. Since I go the laptop all the problems have gone away. I can wireless print to my Brother HL-L5200 dual tray 2 sets of 150 pages + in about 15 mins. Best $300 on the laptop ever spent!

I live in the world of Mac and my wife is Windows. We only run Brother printers MFC9130CW, MFC L5800CW and MFCL8610 CDW. I had the same type of issues, until I started using the https://www.notaryrotary.com/mc/pdfsorter.asp?id=&multi=1&progressid=
This solved all the problems I was having and it works great every time with no cut offs and it could not be easier to use, of course my wife can just print directly from her Windows computer with no issues.
Phil