[printing] duplex doesn't work

[printing] duplex doesn't work

[Thorsten]

Using a hp-laserjet under Ubuntu, duplex printing works just fine -
except using emacs. I installed the printing package, but activating the
duplex option does nothing. 
So I copy text from an emacs-buffer to gedit to get a nicely formatted
duplex print, what is kind of embarrassing, even if nobody looks.
How can I make the duplex option work in printing.el?
Cheers
-- 
Thorsten

Re: [printing] duplex doesn't work (Thorsten)

[Steve Revilak]

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>Using a hp-laserjet under Ubuntu, duplex printing works just fine -
>except using emacs. I installed the printing package, but activating the
>duplex option does nothing.
>So I copy text from an emacs-buffer to gedit to get a nicely formatted
>duplex print, what is kind of embarrassing, even if nobody looks.
>How can I make the duplex option work in printing.el?
>Cheers

This could be a emacs, or it could be a factor of the printing
system.  

My linux distribution uses CUPS.  Via CUPS, I've configured duplex as
a default option for print jobs.  To see if CUPS is installed on your
system, visit <http://localhost:631/> in your web browser of choice.
If you see a page with the word "CUPS", then that is probably what
your system is using to print, and you use this web interface to
configure duplex as a default option.  Maybe this is all you need to
do.

I'm familiar with lpr.el (i.e., M-x print-region and friends), but not
printing.el.  AFAIK, lpr.el delegates work to the system lpr command.
If printing.el does something similar, then I'd start by getting lpr
to produce duplex.  In other words, go to a shell prompt and type

    lpr YOUR-FILE.txt

where YOUR-FILE.txt is a text file that's longer than one page in
length.  If your file prints as simplex, try

    lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge YOUR-FILE.txt

Once you've figured out how to produce two-sided output via lpr, you
can (a) use lpoptions to set the options permanently, or (b) figure
out how to get emacs to pass those options to lpr.

For lpr.el, I believe you can accomplish (b) by customizing the emacs
variable `lpr-switches'.

Sorry that's not a direct answer to your question, but hopefully it
helps you get a little further.

Steve

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Re: [printing] duplex doesn't work (Thorsten)

[Thorsten]

Steve Revilak <steve@srevilak.net> writes:

> My linux distribution uses CUPS.  Via CUPS, I've configured duplex as
> a default option for print jobs.  To see if CUPS is installed on your
> system, visit <http://localhost:631/> in your web browser of choice.
> If you see a page with the word "CUPS", then that is probably what
> your system is using to print, and you use this web interface to
> configure duplex as a default option.  Maybe this is all you need to
> do.

Perfect, this did the job, now duplex printing works fine in Emacs too.
Thanks a lot for your long and informative answer - it helped me to get
rid of a problem that annoyed me for quite some time now. 

Cheers
-- 
Thorsten