Information and Technology

Duplex Printing - OS X

Duplex printing allows you to save paper by printing to both sides of a single sheet. All public printers on campus are capable of printing duplex but there is no way for us to automatically configure this on personal computers. The following steps will walk you through configuring or selecting duplex printing for your installed printers.

Configuring the Print Driver

You must first configure the print driver on your computer so that it knows the printer is capable of printing duplex.
1. Click on the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner
2. Select System Preferences...
3. Click on Print & Fax
4. Select the printer that you want to print duplex to
5. Click on the Open Print Queue... button directly to the right of the printer icon
6. In the Print Queue window, click on Printer Setup
7. Click on the Driver tab in the middle
    a) If there is an optional checkbox for Duplex Unit, select it and click OK
    b) If there is not an optional checkbox for Duplex Unit, the driver is ready to print duplex by default, click OK
8. You may close all windows

Setting the Print Job to Duplex

1. In any application, click on File - Print...
2. Select the printer you would like to print to from the printer drop-down list.
3. If the print window is small, like the one shown below, click the triangle to the right of the printer name.

4. To print just this job in duplex mode, check the box that says Two-Sided (as shown below) and print as you normally would.




5. This can get tricky because it isn't the same for every application. Microsoft Office applications, for example require you to choose the Layout option from the drop-down list in the middle of the window and then say Two-Sided: On. Setting a Duplex preset helps alleviate this hassle.

Setting a Duplex Printing Preset

1. Set a printer to print duplex following the instructions above
2. From the Presets drop-down menu, choose Save As...
3. Enter a name for the preset in the field provided. Name it something like Duplex Printing
4. For the question Preset Availalbe For, select All Printers and click OK
5. For any application, select your newly created Duplex Printing preset to print two-sided without needing to locate the specific option in the different print dialog boxes.