Paper sizes that show up in programs wrong

Our regular inkjet printer died so we bought a cheap HP 2622. We'll be moving next year and didn't want to spend any money on a better one.

BUT, using Ubuntu 18.04 it's close to impossible to use this printer. The paper sizes offered to the applications never includes USA Letter.

Every time I try to configure the printer through the PRINTERS GUI it defaults back to "CUSTOM 1" paper. This would be ok if there was some way for me to define what that was.

In the configure GUI it does show "LETTER 8.5 x 11" but again, the applications trying to print do NOT see that.

This is the first HP printer we've ever had, are the drivers always this bad?

Do I just return this printer and buy a Canon?

I downloaded the HPLIP driver again and re-installed it. I removed the printer and let the driver installation put a new copy in.

System: Ubuntu (KDE) 18.04, 64 bit

Driver: HP Deskjet 2600 series, hpcups 3.19.11