Have not had trouble loading sheets down to 8.5 x 11 inches, shoving the 8.5" side in first. Release the lever, push the sheet up to the orange marks under the rollers, lined up with the orange marks on the outfeed platform. However, I can not seem to routinely print the first inch or so. There's some setting that has to do with this, but I don't know what it is. Only time I load sheets is in the rare event of printing a nozzle check before printing profiling targets.