How to change iPad printer paper to Letter now set to A4

Most of HP’s recent AirPrint printers are configured and managed using the HP Smart App, or via the printer’s control panel:

hhttps://apps.apple.com/app/hp-smart/id469284907

As for AirPrint, each AirPrint printer will “advertise” its presence - and the available print options that it supports. Each printer manufacturer and printer model may have different capabilities. What you can see as available print options are almost entirely controlled by the printer - and not by iOS/iPadOS.

Unless the printer has multiple paper trays, you may only see a single available page size - this either being set within the printer’s own settings (potentially set via an App - see above) or from the detected paper size.

If your iPad doesn’t detect an AirPrint printer, the iPad will show multiple paper sizes within the Print settings dialogue - from which you can select page size and formatting - as print output can be saved to Files or shared, (via the Share Sheet) with other Apps.

I've got an iPad Mini 4 too, although it's a little bit wonky (was dropped hard once where the case bent) and I just keep it around for the heck of it. It can go batty at any time including loss of Wi-Fi connection, scrambled display, or restarting by itself. But when it works, it works normally. Until it doesn't.

I tried printing. Without an actual printer set up it had several options including A3, A4, letter, and legal. But once I selected my printer it said letter only. I believe that it's communicating with the printer and that's the setting I had for the printer. I changed the paper size setting for my printer (via the printer's front panel) to A4, and when I tried printing on the iPad my only option was A4. But this could be dependent on the particular printer and whatever drivers are available.

Addendum: I'm a bit confused about the particular model and OS, but I don't think it matters. I tried it out on my iPad Mini 4 with iPadOS 15.7.5, but I believe it works the same way on the iPad mini 6 (which I have but haven't tried yet).

I found a user guide, but it's not very specific on how to change the paper size. It does say something about paper size being something that can be specified with the control panel.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05634824.pdf

NOTE: If you change the paper size, be sure to load the correct paper in the input tray and set the paper size on the printer control panel.

I’m on my iPad mini 6 now where I have access to a friend’s HP OfficeJet. That must have a different setup as I can access about two dozen different paper sizes. However, the connection is via Wi-Fi networking and not Bluetooth. At home I’ve got a Canon MFC 230 series that’s wired Ethernet, but connected to the same network box with Wi-Fi. But that is specific where I see a single paper size at a time with no means to select a different size without changing it on the control panel.

oceanlady wrote:

I am also connected to my printer via wi-fi network but that makes no difference with the selections of paper sizes I see in my drop-down box in iPad.

So, bottom line is, neither wi-fi nor Bluetooth connections have enabled paper size selections in my iPad.

But why is the iPad default set at A4?

I'm thinking that there’s got to be some way. Some HP printers have an “embedded web server” interface, but it’s really tricky. You would need to find out the IP address that it’s been assigned by the networking equipment.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_2029438-1929621-16

That was one of the things I saw in the documentation - that there was supposed to be a prompt to specify the paper size after inserting paper. But obviously sometimes it takes just trying out everything to see what finally works.

Thank you so much Ocean Lady XXX The printer was the problem!