Actually, there is a technological solution, although at this point we are waiting for implementations.
PDF/VT, an ISO standard based upon PDF/X-4, allows mediatype DPart metadata for each page. That metadata can tag a page as letterhead or plain and have nothing to do whatsoever with the page or paper size.
The print job's job ticket, in JDF perhaps, would associate this metadata for each page of the PDF file with a device's particular paper sources/trays/etc.
In reality, assuming that for the printing involved, the letterhead and plain pages are the same grade of paper, the simplest solution is probably to incorporate the letterhead content on the pages that need it, the eliminating the need to switch paper trays continually throughout a job. (It should be noted that such trays switching normally exacts a fairly high overhead in terms of high speed print device throughput!)
- Dov