what is the print settings priority order?

One of the things that causes me frequent frustration is printing envelopes.

Yes, I've read the "how to print an envelope" FAQ. I had it all set up more-or-less correctly.

Intuitively, I would think that an envelope should be centered in the printer but it has to be on the right-hand side and I can live with that.

I print my envelopes from Open Office Writer. Each envelope has it's own document in which I've set the envelope size and positioned the text so that all I ahve to do is open that document and print it when I need a particular enveolpe for a particular party.

For the most part this scheme works. Every once in a while, like today, it goes completely screwy.

My expectation is as follows:

System->Administration->Printing->Printer Properties, I would expect, sets the default properties for a printer when they aren't specified in a given print job.

OpenOffice->Print Directly to printer Icon, I would expect, will not add formatting and will use the System->Administration.... options.

OpenOffice->Print->Properties, I would expect will set properties for the printer that apply to the current document and override the System->Administration.... settings. I would further expect this to be saved with the current document so that these properties are loaded every time the document is loaded. At least, that's the way it seems to have been working.

First of all, are my above three assumptions correct?

What's happened today is that I've gone to print an enveolpe - one that I've printed dozens of this year - and the position of the text is no longer correct - it now seems to expect the envelope to be inserted in the left-hand side of the printer - and it is either printing too slowly (it seems like it) or the fuser temperature is set too high. The envelope comes out with the flap glued shut.

I have not changed any printing preferences in the document, nor at the system level. It just seems to have gone stupid on me.

Having said that, I do occasionally need ot change the preferences for other documents (usually with respect to duplex printing) but nothing with regard to paper type (envelope) or anything that should affect the positioning of an envelope in the printer. All of my other printing involves full sheets of paper.

I'd love to know where and how these settings are getting changed so I can be more conscious of what I'm doing if it is in fact me that's changing things.

The other thought I had is: could this have anything to do with CUPS updates? I believe I saw one in the last 24 hours.