Duplex printing in Microsoft Word 2000 |
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Printing on both sides of the paper makes a lot of sense. It's environmentally friendly as well as cost-saving and convenient. Say you're distributing handouts to 100 meeting participants. Which would you rather carry in your briefcase while trekking through an airport: 100 sheets with printing on both sides, or 200 sheets? Besides that, the Environmental Protection Agency has found that duplexing can reduce paper waste by up to 25 percent.
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Save a tree, save your back, save money |
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Let's look at two ways of duplexing: manual and automatic
Enabling manual duplexing in Word 2000
| If your printer doesn't support duplexing, you'll have to do a little paper shuffling to print on both sides of the paper--hence the term manual duplexing. It's not difficult, though, and once you've successfully printed one document in duplex, you'll be a pro. To print on both sides of a document from Microsoft Word 2000: |
1. Print the document's odd pages.
2. Reinsert the printed pages into the printer.
3. Print the document's even pages.
There are two challenges involved in this three-step process: telling the application which pages to print in what order, and figuring out how to reinsert paper into your printer so that it's oriented correctly. |
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The right order |
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To print just the odd pages of a document, choose
File > Print, select
Odd Pages from the
Print menu, and click
OK.
| Once these pages print and you reinsert them into the printer (details on getting the right orientation are covered next), choose
File > Print, select
Even Pages From the
Print Menu, and click
OK To print the remaining document pages. |
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Page orientation |
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When Word prompts you to remove the printed pages from the exit tray and reinsert them into the printer, how do you know the correct page orientation--i.e., which edge first and which side up? Sometimes the printer's manual will tell you, but the best way is to run a simple test of your own.
1. On a blank piece of paper, draw a big arrow pointing up (toward a narrow edge) and insert it in your printer face up so you can see the arrow, with the arrow pointing toward the printer.
2. Print something that's one page long. It doesn't matter what.
3. Examine the printout and answer these questions:
- Does the printing appear on the same side of the paper as the arrow, or the opposite side?
- Does the arrow point toward the top of the printed page, or toward the bottom?
4.Reinsert the paper into the printer using the following table's guidelines, then print the same page again.
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Printing on same side as arrow |
Printing on opposite side from arrow |
Arrow points to top of printout
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Insert face down, top first
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Insert face up, top first
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Arrow points to bottom of printout
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Insert face down, bottom first
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Insert face up, bottom first
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Note: If you have to place your paper face down for duplexing (top or bottom first) you have to print your even pages in reverse order to ensure the proper page layout in your final printed document. To change the print order for even page printing, choose
File > Print and select
Even Pages from the
Print. Then, click
Properties and select the
Back to Front page order option.
When you have a two-sided printout that is identical on both sides (except for the arrow), with the tops of each side at the same edge, you have figured out your printer's duplex orientation. Write the correct duplex orientation on a sticky note and stick it on your printer so you only have to go through this experiment once.
Warning: Your printer's manual feed orientation and tray feed orientations may be different. Be sure you test both methods of feeding paper to your printer, or at least the one you plan to regularly use. |
Automatic duplexing |
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Some lucky people have printers that can automatically print in duplex (that is, print on both sides of the page with no user intervention). Automatic duplex printers are completely hassle-free. If you do a lot of duplexing, a printer with that capability can save you lots of time--and, as we all know, time is money.When your printer automatically duplexes documents, you control all of its duplex settings in the printer's property information rather than in Word. Unlike manual duplexing, you let the printer manage the flipping and rotating of paper. You print as usual from Word (
File > Print And click
OK) and let the printer know you want to take advantage of its duplex capabilities. For complete details on how to use the duplex features on your printer, refer to your documentation.
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Printable version
