To force a inkjet (able to do it) to print front and back

[fox]

Hi all.
Please I would like to know if anybody can suggest a way to force a inkjet printer (able to do it) to print a sheet of paper front and back with LB.
Thanks a lot for any suggestions.
Bye.
fox

[Rod]

Hopefully Walt or someone well versed in API can look at this. support.microsoft.com/kb/167345

[fox]

Thanks a lot, Rod.
I will read and try to understand the explanation of the support.
fox

[Walt Decker]

I have not tried that. However, it seems to me that the ms print dialog has a setting for double sided printing if the printer supports it.

Access the print dialog and take a look.

[fox]

Thanks a lot, Walt, for your suggestion, but I haven't been able to do a front and back print.
Bye
fox

[Rod]

Never mind Liberty, Can you get your printer to print your text file double sided manually? The printer dialog should have an option for two sided printing. In a lot of printers you have to turn and reinsert the paper manually. More expensive printers will automate the whole process.

To do it programmatically you have to query the printers capability, set the flag and then print, all via API. Quite complex as the link shows.

Given that most cheap printers require you to reinsert the paper it all seems a lot of effort. I have never had the need to try but I would probably split the text file to front and back pages, print all the fronts, reverse the papers and print the rears. But there is great potential for misfeeds and hiccups which wreak the whole job. You would need an option to reprint page by page.

[Walt Decker]

Open a document in msword, openoffice, wordpad or the app you use for documents that you know has more than one page.

Press the print option.
Select your printer.

There should be an option on the dialog something like double sided. In not there should be an option for preferences.

If it has an option for double sided it may have "manual" in parens. If that is
case you have no option but to print all of one side, reset the paper and print the other.

If it has an option for preferences, double sided printing may be there. It may list an option like "duplex" instead of double sided. If it has "duplex" that is double sided. After that it may have "manual" in parens.

The printer manufactures will normally set up a driver that accesses the print dialog and modify it to allow you to select all the options you need for your printer.

[fox]

Thanks a lot, Rod and Walt.
I'm able to print front and back automatically with "normal" word processor, but my problem start when I try to create a front and back print option (in a my program) with LB. With command "printerdialog" the dialog with printer start and I am able to choose front and back on the menu and after I click OK, but finally the printer prints anyway only a face of sheets of paper.
Bye
fox

[Rod]

I was really surprised this worked. I expected that control characters would be stripped out. Chr$(12) is the page feed control character. I set my printer to double sided, it is a manual paper swap. The program ran but the printer dialog kicked in halfway and told me to turn the paper. Result double sided listing. My printer is an all in one inkjet printer scanner copier by Epson.

for n= 1 to 100
   lprint "This is line ";n
   if n=66 then lprint chr$(12)
next
dump
end


[fox]

Thanks a lot, Rod.
You solved the problem. Using your code the printer works as I want.
Thanks a lot again and bye.
fox