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April 14, 2010
Answered

Booklet printing pages upside down

  • April 14, 2010
  • 11 replies
  • 246968 views

Please help!!!

I have wasted alot of time and paper today trying to figure out why this is happening!

When I go to print a booklet, some of the inside pages are printed upside down.

I have gone through every single setting in both Indesign and my printer settings and cannot workout wots going on!

When I go to print the booklet, the preview panel shows everything correct, but wot prints out is all over the place.

Please someone help before I pull my hair out! lol x

Correct answer selhart

I found this article to be helpful in printing booklets from InDesign.

Guide on using Print Booklet feature in InDesign - WSA

11 replies

phosphoricc
Participant
June 10, 2022

Here Adobe describes step by step process of how to print brochures using Reader and Acrobat X

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/kb/print-booklets-acrobat-reader.html

Participant
January 4, 2021

I just spent hours and loads of paper on this, looked at all the help pages here and elsewhere, tried updating printer driver.  Discovered it was printing back side in PDF booklet upside down on two printers (Brother mono laser and Epson Expression). I tried all the settings I could find. Someone somewhere said set it to print in portrait not landscape, and Voilla!  It worked.  Why did it take me hours and hours to find this and why don't the Adobe guideless specify this upfront?  I was already saying bind on short edge.  Tried checking "automatically rotate pages."  Nothing worked until setting print setting to portrait rather than landscape.

Participant
September 25, 2023

This is the answer I was seeking. I had checked landscape and it was constantly printing the backside of my spreads incorrectly. Switching back to portrait gave me the control back. 

Participant
June 3, 2019

I am printing a small book where 2 pages fit on one side of an A5 page

The following settings work for me.
 

When saving from InDesign select PDF Print as opposed to Interactive PDF. (Graphics do not print correctly when Interactive setting is used.


  
 

Part 1

1. Click on the "Size" button then more options and activate "Reverse pages"

2. Select "Actual size"

3. Select "Print on both sides", Flip on "long edge"

4. Orientation is "Auto portrait/landscape

5. Click on page setup and make sure that A5 is selected


 

Part 2

6. Click on "Booklet"

7. Orientation is portrait

8. Print



 

Participant
October 31, 2020

If you are using an HP Officejet (mine is the OfficeJet Pro 8600) when you bring up the printer dialog box in Acrobat Reader and select booklet, you must check the box next to "Auto-rotate pages within each sheet".  This will make the back sides of each sheet print right-side up.

Participant
January 14, 2019

Something to add...I was having the same issue. I tried "flip along short" and "flip along long" edge, both producing the same result. I closed the file, quit Acrobat, and re-started the program. The next attempt worked. The old turn it off and turn it back on trick works again!

Participant
April 21, 2022

This worked for me, too. Printed an 8.5x11 sheet front and back with the Default Preset - printed normally.

Changed to a custom preset for another print job - printed as it should.

Changed back to the Default Preset - Page 1 printed normally but page 2 on the reverse side printed "upside-down".

No amount of editing flipping along long or short edges changed the behavior.

Quitting Acrobat and reopening was the only consistent "fix" for me.

Inspiring
August 29, 2016

I was exporting mine as PDF from InDesign as well, and had one page randomly doing this too. 

I tracked it down to one image on that particular page which had been rotated 90 degrees. I un-rotated it and it worked. 

jaukc
Participant
September 10, 2014

same problems - easily solved in the end by ignoring any options in the Adobe print manager - just print normally, full page and use the printer driver settings to select: booklet printing; left edge binding; duplex -

Participant
September 3, 2014

I had the same problem!!  Thank you for posting and thank you to everyone who suggested the short-edge binding in printer settings!!  YES YES YES - SO HAPPY!

selhart
selhartCorrect answer
Participant
August 13, 2014

I found this article to be helpful in printing booklets from InDesign.

Guide on using Print Booklet feature in InDesign - WSA

April 15, 2010

Well wouldnt you know it!

I changed the printer setting to 'flip on short edge' which dosnt make any sense, but it worked!

All the pages printed out the right side up.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Mr. Met
Inspiring
April 15, 2010

The language can seem seem counterintuitive. My digital printer uses the term front and rear for pulling a sheet. And even weirder, if front is the top of the sheet, rear is the side of the sheet when one would think it's the bottom. I'm constantly choosing front when I need rear and entering a positive # when I need a negative # when trying to align the back of a sheet to the front. Usually takes me a good 5-10 test sheets before I get good registration.

Peret94450
Participant
March 20, 2018

natbas Choosing Flip on short edge worked. Thanks so much for sharing. Spent three hours over the weekend trying to figure this one out.

Peter Spier
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 14, 2010

I don't think I've ever seen a case where this wasn't due to using the wrong page flip direction in the duplexer settings, which are inthe print driver setup. Whatever you've fot selected now, choose the other one. DIfferent printers use differerent names for the settings, but they all do the same thing, either flip around the long edge of the paper or flip around the short edge. There just aren't any other possibilities.

Mr. Met
Inspiring
April 14, 2010

When you say some of the pages is it random pages or is it all the back are upside down (or the fronts, for that matter)? If all your back pages are upside down, it's clearly a setting. If you're printing head to head, try printing head to foot or vice versa.

Also be sure your print drivers are current for your computer/printer.

p_taz
Inspiring
April 14, 2010

If it is only a few pages it can't really be settings... the duplex setting refers to the whole book.  Maybe you have used the wrong imposition and the number of pages in a flat is incorrect.  Does the book have placed EPS or PDF's?

Also, an obvious question, did you start with a conventional file with one page flats and no 'manual' rotation of contents?