Printing a postcript file with a Duplex command doesn't work on new HP printer

[MNChump]

The old printer could take the postscript duplex command and duplex the pages. The old printer is the M630z, the new printer M682z will not take the duplex command and duplex the sheets. The following file sent to the printer from linux using the lp -s -d myprinter duplex.ps results in simplex printing. The older HP printer worked fine with the duplex command. The duplexer works on the printer, we have used other ways to test the duplexer and its fine. What would be in the way of the new printer duplexing like the old printer?

%!PS-Adobe-3.0

<</Duplex true >> setpagedevice

/Courier 72 selectfont
72 648 moveto
(PAGE 1) show
showpage

72 648 moveto
(PAGE 2) show
showpage

[Repairatrooper]

The 630 series and the M682 are different generations and there was a major redesign of the hardware which appears to have changed the duplex commands. Have you tried any of the LInux boards to see if other users have had problems? You do not state which type of linux you are running but you can refer to this page which lists commands that appear different than what you included in your script and might work better with the newer pritner.

https://www.cups.org/doc/options.html

[MNChump · Accepted solution]

What I have found is the linux cups printing uses ppd files. These files are literally the driver for the printer. What we are doing is turning off duplexing and turning on duplexing inside the file itself. The ppd file is not going to allow that from what I can tell. If you use the lp command with no duplex options, it will take the default from the ppd file. It wouldn't matter if you had 100 duplex commands in your file, if the ppd default was simplex, it would print simplex. If you opted to use the duplex option on the command line, the duplexer would be invoked and every page would be duplexed. This is not what we want. We want to be able to turn off and on duplexing in a file as needed. The lpr command has the -l option which sends the raw file to the printer. This does not use the ppd file and will work, but it would be nice not to have to do that.