Two-sided printing not an option on Mac

[allison2345]

Hi all,

I recently switched to a Mac, and I no longer have the option to print double-sided from my printer.  I always had to turn the paper over, which is fine, but now I don't even have that option.  I'm a graduate student who needs to print up to 100 pages per week, so double-sided printing is seriously important for me.  

The solutions I've seen so far required going to Printers & Scanners, clicking Printer Queue, and going to Printer Setup--but there is no longer a Printer Setup option from the Printer Queue, and I can't find Printer Setup anywhere.  I have tried deleting and adding the printer again by "resesting" my printers and adding it again, both with AirPrint and the HP driver, with no success.  I have also tried validating all my permissions, including printer permissions, updating my HP software, updating my Adobe and Word software, Pages, printing from a browser, closing programs and reloading, restarting the computer, etc.  Nothing seems to work.

I have seen that for "manual two-sided printing" you must print the odd pages, then print all the even pages, which is absolutely ridiculous.  On windows, you can select print double-sided, and it does not require changing settings twice and hitting print twice for every document--it simply prints half the pages, beeps to let you know to put the paper in again, and then prints the other side.  Printing odd and then even pages also would not work when attempting to print "multiples," or two pages per side of page.  Since my printing volume is so high, I print multiples and then double sided, so each piece of printer paper contains four pages of text.  Additionally, this means you can no longer automatically collate your papers, which is a major issue when dealing with print outs that are 60 pages long.  There has to be an easier way to accomplish this.

If I don't have this function, the printer is essentially useless because I will be wasting so much paper (and having to carry around heavy packets with me), I would rather pay to print on campus.  I have only had the printer 11 months, and got it expressly to print my schoolwork because my print volume is so high.

Thanks for a fast reply.

[RnRMusicMan]

Hi @allison2345,

Welcome to the HP Forums!

I noticed that you are having trouble with two-sided printing not being an option on your Mac OS X 10.10 yosemite, for your HP Laserjet Pro MFP M127fw printer. I am happy to look into this for you! 

According to page, 28 of your printer's User Guide. It states: 

Manually print on both sides (Mac OS X)

NOTE: This feature is available if you install the HP print driver. It might not be available if you are using AirPrint.

1. Click the File menu, and then click the Print option.
2. In the Printer menu, select the product.
3. Open the menus drop-down list or click Show Details, and then click the Manual Duplex menu.
4. Click the Manual Duplex box, and then select a binding option.
5. Click the Print button. The product will print the first side of all the pages in the document first.

So it appears to me, that this is the only option for duplex printing with this printer. 

Hope this answers your question, and have an nice day! 

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[allison2345]

Hi RnRMusicMan,

This works for Word documents, but it does not work for PDFs.  I tried saving the preset with manual duplex on, and it works when I select that preset in word, but it automatically turns it off when printing a PDF (if I go to "see all presets," manual duplex is listed as off).  Is there a similar solution for printing PDFs?  Most of my articles for school are PDFs.

Thanks,

Allison

[RnRMusicMan]

Hi allison2345,

Each program has a different specific set of printing options. I would recommend to try using a different PDF reader. As an example, if you are using Adobe Reader, try a different program instead. This article, Best PDF Reader for Mac OS X (Yosemite and El Capitan Included), has a list of 12 free PDF readers, that you can try. 

Hope this helps! 

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