Automatic duplex printing off a desktop printer

[Liedenfrost]

Hi,

I have a duplex printer and I've set it up such that the default preset when I print from an application is for duplex printing. I want to be able to do batch printing, and it seems like creating a desktop printing and then dragging-and-dropping is the easiest solution (please tell me if I'm wrong). When I drag files onto the desktop printer, it prints single-sided. Is there a way to make the default duplex (or, more generally, to make the default a particular preset that I've set up)?

Thanks.

 

[r0k]

At our office, all our printers are set to default to duplex. At home, we have only 2 duplex printers and I always print to them from within applications. I pick duplex whenever I want it and I leave single sided as the default. I'm sure there is a way to make duplex the default, I'm just not in front of my Mac to check out how to do it.

 

[Selfdestrukt]

This is the exact problem i am having right now. I am very surprised there seems to be no easy solution..

I opened ALL documents in 1 window in preview and printed... then half way through 1 of the documents was a different # of pages and all pages got messed up i.e., documents would print on the wrong page of another document because it was "duplexing" the whole Q and not making a separation between files..

If you use a desktop icon and drag and drop -- only single sided results even when you have presets made


Any one solve this problem yet? Would be much appreciated!


I was trying automator but again there seems to be no way to tell it to use the double sided/duplex option when printing resulting in single page prints again



UPDATE: As painful as it may seem to use a PC.. I stumbled on http://www.coolutils.com/TotalPDFPrinter
Seems to be a freeware program that Qs all up on PC and duplex works


I saw a few sites suggesting to use "CUPS" but it went way over my head how to use it

 

[benwiggy]

You can control the default settings of your printer through the CUPS web interface.
Simply go to the following local address in your browser:
http://localhost:631

If the web interface is not active, you will see the following message:

The web interface is currently disabled. Run "cupsctl WebInterface=yes" to enable it.

So enter

cupsctl WebInterface=yes

in the Terminal and then go back to or refresh the web page.

You will now see a menu that controls everything to do with printing. Click on the Printer tab at the top right; select your printer from the List, then select "Select Default Options".
You can then specify and save all your printer's controls.

The print menu should use the last-used Preset. If you're printing by dropping files on the Desktop Printer (presumably only file types that OS X understands natively), then that will just use the CUPS defaults. If you can set these defaults on the printer itself, through some control panel on the machine, then that may help too.

There are other ways to batch print stuff, such as with AppleScript Services.