[dba-Tech] Fake Duplex Printing

Hi Arthur,

I've read through the fine responses you've already had from our 
colleagues and I pretty much concur with what they've all said. I'm 
sharing my own experience on this, now, since I often do need to do 
two-sided pages.

I used to simply print all the odd-numbered pages, then flip the pages 
and print the even-numbered pages.  The issues there are whether the 
pages are output face up or face down.  If face up, then just flipping 
the pages will work.  If the pages come out face down, the second 
printing must go in the opposite direction, i.e., first print goes 1-35 
odd only, second print goes 36-2 even only.  This part of the issue is 
printer-specific.  In my HP laser printer, if I have the back tray open, 
pages go straight through and are delivered face up.  If the back tray 
is closed, pages get turned over and are delivered face down.  That 
printer is not equipped with a duplexing attachment, so everything is 
manual.  My HP inkjet printer does have the duplexing attachment, and it 
works quite well - the way the pages are delivered is face up, but the 
order of output depends on whether I'm doing one-sided or two-sided 
printing.

Paper mis-feed is a real problem, whether one is dealing with a laser 
printer or an inkjet printer - especially in settings with high static 
electricity or in hot damp weather.  I also find that the longer the 
print job is, the more likely the paper is to jam or mis-feed.

If the print job is important to me - and it usually is - I will break 
it down into smaller chunks, say five or ten sheets of paper at a time.  
Once I start experiencing paper mis-feeds, I am likely to hand feed the 
pages, one at a time, and flip each one to print the next page.  On a 
165-page programming manual, this takes me a long time, but I still do 
it.  Usually, I set up some other task to keep me busy between turns :-)

Hope this helps,
TNF

Tina Norris Fields
tinanfields-at-torchlake-dot-com
231-322-2787

On 3/12/2014 11:34 AM, Arthur Fuller wrote:
> In the absence of a duplex printer, what's the simplest way to print a
> 50-page document from OpenOffice? IOW, my friend wants to print the
> odd-numbered pages first, then flip the pages and re-insert them, and print
> the even-numbered pages.
>