dual-sided printing?

Constantine Evans constantine at evanslabs.org
Thu Oct 12 15:00:26 UTC 2006


One thing you don't need to do is buy TurboPrint. It is completely 
unnecessary for the printer, which has free drivers from HP (HPLIP) that 
are able to perform advanced features if you need them, and are included 
in Ubuntu. Even then, manual duplexing is printer independent, up to 
some changes depending upon the paper path.

However, I don't think manual duplexing is currently possible using 
Ubuntu's standard printing dialog. From a terminal, you can print a 
document with the lp command. This is much more flexible: you might want 
to look at the CUPS manual[1], which explains all of the options. To do 
manual duplexing, you should be able to use something akin to the 
following commands:

lp -o page-set=even -o outputorder=reverse document.ps

{take paper and put it in the tray}

lp -o page-set=odd document.ps

You will have to experiment with the orientation and printing order for 
this. The orientation probably needs to be such that the text is face 
down in the tray with the top of the page furthest inside. I think the 
order should be right, but if you get the first page printed on the same 
sheet as the penultimate page, then remove the "-o outputorder=reverse" 
from the first command.

I apologise for this being so complex. It would be possible to write a 
short program that would do this automatically, but it would either need 
a printer database or a rather confusing configuration routine to cope 
with the difference in paper paths of various printers.

Sincerely,
Constantine Evans

[1] http://www.cups.org/doc-1.1/sum.html#4_3_3 . Of particular 
importance is the -d option, which allows you to select the printer if 
it isn't the default printer, and the "-o media" option, which allows 
you to select the tray.


David Abrahams wrote:
> When I print on my HP Laserjet 1300 from Windows, I get an option to
> print on both sides (manually).  I start the job, pull the even pages
> out of the top of the printer, put them back in the printer tray,
> press the button, and it prints the odd sides.  I get a nice
> double-sided document with no wasted paper; the driver even rotates
> the page images in the first pass so moving the paper is trivial.
> 
> Is there a way to get a similar effect on Ubuntu?  I really want to
> eliminate my Windows dependence.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 





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