Printing double sided InDesign

[jenniferm10679084]

I am new to InDesign.  Trying to print a tri-fold double sided and the reverse side is printing upside down. I think it is some settings I need to tweak but can't find an easy answer.  Can anyone give guidance?  

[Frans v.d. Geest · Accepted solution]

That is handled by the printer options, not InDesign. You have to set this up in your printer settings.

[jenniferm10679084]

Every other program I tried to print double sided comes out fine, so it does seem as though it is a setting in InDesign

[John Mensinger]

"it does seem as though it is a setting in InDesign"

But it's not. InDesign's Print dialog doesn't include duplexing settings. Your best bet would be to export the pages to PDF and print from Acrobat, but either way, duplex is a print driver setting. There is no universal convention for how it's presented, but "flip on [long or short] edge" is pretty common these days. If for some reason you must print from InDesign, click the Setup button near the lower-left corner of the InDesign Print dialog to access the print driver settings.

[jenniferm10679084]

Thanks- i did already try this - and then exported as a PDF and brought it to staples and the same thing happened.  They said my document was set up this way.  Will keep trying different settings. 

[Safwan Malahfji]

I'm sorry to say "IT IS NOT".

my printer settings says "double-sided:off" and yet InDesign ingnore and print double-sided.

every other program on my Mac doesn't have this problem (including Adode apps)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

As noted in this thread and elsewhere, InDesign simply does not have a duplex printing option (as does Word and some other programs). If you go through all the ID print menu options, you'll see there is no option related to duplex or double-sided or anything of the kind.

InDesign sends the pages one at a time; it is up to the printer and print driver to decide how to put them on the physical pages. (That's true of all apps, even Word, but Word has some high-level settings that make telling the printer what to do a little easier for novice users.)

Many printer interfaces have multiple "facets." You might have a high-level menu set to non-duplex printing, but another, more basic or controlling menu might have it set otherwise. It might even be set at the hardware control-panel level. Your screen shot seems to be from a simple or summary menu. Look at the complete printer setup menu or interface... you will probably find the setting there is what's enabling duplex printing.

[Safwan Malahfji]

Well, thanks for you quick reply.

In my (over 40 yaers) experience, if every single program in the computer working NORMAL except one, no need to look for something far from this program, the problem is in that ONE program.

BTW, for me, this problem occure recently, a few months ago, before that, InDesign used to follow the printer's settings and print however I wanted it to print.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, we probably started on the same rocks and sticks. 🙂

The only thing I can think of is that many printer drivers do maintain settings by app (e.g. one can be set to print in color and another grayscale, without having to change the driver-level settings each time), and some glitch set the duplex printing option for ID even though it can't do it itself.

If you really can't find a stray setting anywhere in the driver options while ID is loaded and in control, you might update the printer driver (often a good thing to do from the OEM site rather than the Windows repository anyway.)

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi Jenifer,

Thanks for reaching out. I'd recommend checking out an old but similar discussion on https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/printing-2-sided-from-indesign/td-p/2222207?page=1
Let us know if it helps.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[Querty]

This was solved over HERE. In your document, go to File > Print. At the bottom of the box, there's a button called "Setup..." - clicking this brings up a warning, clicking OK brings up printer preferences. Select your printer, click "Preferences" and one of them should be double sided printing. Two years late, but hopefully it helps anyone else looking for the same thing!

[23252789igr5]

yeah that helped me a lot, Thank you.

[bmack3]

I am having the same issue. The "two-sided printing" box is un-cheked in printer set up and InDesign still prints double sided. I did not have this issue until several months ago. Thanks - Bob

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This is, AFAIK, handled 100% by the printer driver and printer configuration. Settings in applications for this, when they exist, are almost always just extensions of printer-driver controls.

My ID print menu has no options for two-sided printing (or not) even in the Setup submenu, which is printer-specific. Entering it has no duplex option, unless I go  on into the actual printer setup menu.

Check all of these to see if you've set up an override within ID that's being passed to the printer. But otherwise, it's not InDesign's doing.

—

[bmack3]

Thanks, James. I checked all of the printer menu options I can find. Both the main printer set-up and in the layout sub-menu. Both ave the two-sided printing set to off. Can you help with locating where I might have accidentaly set up an ID override? Thanks in advance.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Again, to the best of my knowledge ID has no direct control of single/double sided printing, and leaves all that to the printer and its driver interface. The only thing I can think of is that settings through the ID menu (down to the printer controls) are separately preserved for ID printing, even if the system and other apps have it turned off.

I'd look at that chain of menus again, and look closely at the chain of dialogs and so forth when you print something, to see if a setting is being overlooked.

—

[bmack3]

Thanks. I can always save to PDF to print if that does not work.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

It's really strange that this is occurring, since (once again) ID really doesn't have controls at that level.

You could try resetting ID's preferences, which fixes a lot of glitches of this type. I even have the process at hand:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/reset-indesign-preferences-and-other-troubleshoo...

—

[bmack3]

Thank you. I'll try the reset when I am between projects.

[Scott Falkner]

You should tell us what printer you are using, what OS, and what version of the OS.

Here are the two main panels of InDesign’s Print dialogue and there is nothing to control or even select duplexing.

If I click the “Printer…” button at the bottom of the dialogue I can access printer specific controls, including duplexing and how the pages are bound.

[Safwan Malahfji]

If it was a printer problem (or printer setting), this will affect everything printer from any application, but that is not the case here, only printing from InDesign output DUPLEX PRINTING, every other application are fine (even Adobes' applications).

I'm using Mac, and the recent everything (OS, apps, ...)

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

InDesign.

Does.

Not.

Have.

Duplex.

Printing.

Control.

All such things, in all apps, by necessity, lie with the printer driver. No app can make a simplex printer print double-sided, no matter what features you build into it, so few apps have any such controls except high-level mirrors of printer driver/setup options.

You are welcome to find the menu or setting in ID that could possibly be telling the printer to print duplex.

So if only ID is doing this, it's something to do with how the printer driver is interpreting ID's jobs... but it is not, cannot be, ID's direct fault.

[Harry247109345wbp]

Wow James, you really do not listen. We have all experienced this problem and are all aware that InDesign does not have setting to control double sided printing. Somewhere in the latest versions of ID some brainiac has made double sided printing of multiple pages the default setting. Maybe to save on paper, who knows?? What we all want is a fix so that it is all controlled through the printer set up. In the meantime, we need a work around. It is a fault with the ID software THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

[Frans v.d. Geest]

But do you listen/read? It is not controlled by InDesign so it it is not a fault of InDesign. It is controlled by the printer driver setup. You or someone has set this and or saved this setting in the printer setup controlled by the OS. If it was InDesign every user would see this, we however do not.

[namlv96761]

I agrée with you that's the way it should work. However, if you read my post from April 26, 2023 you will see the screenshot I took that clearly shows that the printer driver's Double Sided option is set to off. Despite that when I print from ID, and only ID, it prints on both side of the pages. If it was the printer driver problem, I would have the same result with all the apps. However, this is not the case. So, if all the apps print correctly but ID, what are the chances that it's printer driver problem and not ID?