Double-sided Printing Possible? [Resolved]

Charo

Is it possible on any home printer?  It certainly isn't on mine (HP Envy Photo).  I want to be able to print double-sided like Lovepop does....dream dream dream. 

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Usually on printer that do not do auto double side printing there a method of manual double side printing built into most printer driver
basically you just return the print sheet back to the paper tray or insert in the manual feed if it has one
on issue is that printer vary in ability in placing the printout precisely on the page so any shapes that are meant to be aligned back to may not be perfectly aligned

I not seen any lovepop cards the involve printing at all can you provide and example

MeFlick

Yes, it is possible to do double-side printing on a home printer.  you an do it with any printer doing it manually as Crazy_Mr_Zing noted, but there are home printers that you can purchase that will do automatic double-sided printing.  I have one that I use because when I print off articles and such, it saves paper.  Instead of printing 10 pages - I can do it on 5 for example.  The one I presently have is an HP OfficeJet 4655 but there are others out there.  You just have to look for that feature when looking at printers. The one I have was not that expensive.  Pretty sure it was under $100.  I am not sure of the "alignment" of the double sided printing for making cards, etc. however.

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Another thought You may have to install the manufacturers driver rather the just the windows driver to be able to access the manual double side print function

Not sure about you particular printer but some have a sort of print wizard that shows a animation of which way to orientate the pages when they are returned to the tray

I found this link https://support.hp.com/au-en/document/c04402029

Liz_A

@Charo - I haven't had a printer that could not double side print. Unless you have a document feeder attachment with a back side that opens so that the paper is pulled out (duplexer) and then brought back in to print on the other side, it's a manual process. 

Di-lite

The trick to printing on both sides of  a page is to make sure you line up the two objects when you print so that they are where they need to be for cutting.  It's easiest if they are central top to bottom and side to side.  It gets tricky when it is on one side only.  Needs a little fore-thought to accomplish when flipping the pages by hand as left becomes right etc.

Charo

Oh!  My printer is capable of printing on both pages but from MTC is has to be done manually and I have been totally unsuccessful at getting the images to line up exactly.  I have figured out the correct way to insert the first printed page; second printing just does not line up exactly and there is no way to adjust it.  Grrr.
@Di-lite enclosed is a photo of Lovepop's blue jay.  You can't see it in the photo but the printing has been done on both sides of body pieces.  The pieces with the eye show the eye on one side and just a black head on the other.  Nice!

Di-lite

Here's a suggestion.  Create a square box and centre to the page to hold the pieces in - not for cutting purposes just for printing purposes.  Place the pieces in it and then duplicate and flip it.  It should then print in exactly the same place on both sides.

Charo

@Di-lite a grand idea.  I can't make it work, exactly.  I get the reverse side printed but it is skewed about a half inch.  Was thinking if I could only export the MTC file to pictures or something I think my printer would do what I want.  But I can't figure out a way to do that.  It seems I did it once but today I can't figure out how.

Charo

Got it exported as PDF file; no color.  Then as a raster file; color but attempting to print was exactly the same as printing from MTC....cannot make them line up exactly.  I give up!!

Crazy_Mr_Zing

All printer differ but I think the paper handling precision would being quite low
could be and issue
adding some bleed may help

I think maybe the simpler solution might be single side printing 2 parts and sticking the back to back  possibly place then under a Hervey book to ensure the remained flat

Di-lite

Hey @Charo - don't give up - throw it up here and either Paul or I will think of a way to resolve it.  Or pm it to one of us if copyright is endangered.

Liz_A

@Charo - Bryan covered off double sided printing in a webinar in either late August, or September of 2014. 

Gabe

Not sure if this idea is helpful or not, but here it is...  Try printing the image you want on two sheets of paper.  Meaning the front on one sheet and the back on the other.  Then use PnC to cut them out and glue them together to create the single, double-sided, image.  

Charo

@Liz_A as usual I couldn't find anything about double printing in 2014 forum.  I don't mean for you to do any more work on this; I'm just saying I have NEVER, not even once, found what I wanted on the Forum, even with the wonderful indexes someone made.  @Gabe thanks for taking time on my problem.  What I happen to be working on now is a slice form and I have done what you suggested in the past.  But for slice forms having two sides glued together doesn't work very well as the paper gets too thick.  @Di-lite and @Crazy_Mr_Zing even using the square around each piece (one right sided and one reversed) my printer ends up printing double-sided alright but they are not perfectly lined up, no matter what I can think of.  

Crazy_Mr_Zing

I found this one 

01:58:00 MTC: Bryan discusses trying to work with a double sided “print and cut.” He first notes that your success in large part in being able to do this is going to be reliant upon how accurate your printer can print double sided and how well it feeds your paper in. Bryan shares some “tips” on trying to get this to work

Charo

OMG it worked, perfectly!  I am shocked.  And very happy.  @Crazy_Mr_Zing you have a whole lot more patience than I do; thank you for finding that video.  And I thought I looked so carefully LOL.  @Di-lite you remembered exactly how to do this but I wasn't smart enough to figure out the box had to be exactly in the corner of MTC's page.  I put the box in the middle the first time.  Thank you ALL!

Crazy_Mr_Zing

I did put up a little tutorial of how I search vimeo for topics contained in the MTC webinars  I will try and find it

I always try to keep in mind that the position of any object on the mat is from that top left corner where as cutting position for the bottom right

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Here is is here https://forum.make-the-cut.com/discussion/44553/finding-webinar-topic-via-vimeo-search#latest

Liz_A

@Charo and @Crazy_Mr_Zing yayyyy, doing the happy dance! I found a reference to a September 2014 webinar by doing a search of the forum. I quickly looked at webinars from the middle of August til the beginning of October, and didn't find an exact reference, but then I am not the world's most patient person. So glad that Bryan's video helped you out. Gonna peg this one.

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Another search method I us is use the site: switch in google search

your search term(space)site:http://forum.make-the-cut.com/

eg double side printing site:http://forum.make-the-cut.com/

You can then further filter the results using tools and further options 
for example setting a date range to eliminate very old results relating to old version


Just a little warning if you do these search to quickly this can flag and something is suspicious warning requiring you to complete a captcha
not a big deal just so you know

Charo

Thank you @Crazy_Mr_Zing!  Very helpful to know.  Another "memory aid" added to my increasing file.  By the time I really learn MTC it probably will stop working with another Windows update or something...

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Unfortunately I think that time is coming closer both Apple  announced the next version of operating system will not support 32bit
I not read a so definite announcement from Microsoft

hardware manufacturer Nvidia had already ceased support for 32bit

Which I assume will mean 32bit applications like MTC will not be supported

So I guess unless backward compatibility or work around is allowed for we may have to maintain a insecure / outdated Operating system to enable using MTC

 

Crazy_Mr_Zing

Been thinking about this double side printing
The double side printing functions would not apply would it as MTC only allows sending one page to the print at a time ?

Charo

@Crazy_Mr_Zing I think I have finally understood that my first attempt at getting my MTC print on two sides of one piece of cardstock exactly was luck.  My printer has side guides but nothing at the open (narrow) end I can control once shutting the paper drawer.  I think the bit of play there before the printer picks up the sheet is what is causing the quarter-inch error. So, with this printer (HP Envy Photo) it isn't possible.

Crazy_Mr_Zing

I would expect you to get closer than 1/2" even though most printers are not designed to print so precisely I expect it would be capable of within 1or 2 mm possibly a little less but more than the precision of a cutter
I would add some bleed to allow for that

I'm still not sure about your method I can not see that you would need to rotate the 2nd page design by 180 degree

How I would do this project would be
-add the full page size rectangle to page one
-duplicate that page in mtc (right click the page title tab)
-on that second page flip horizontally
-Discard the rectangles on both pages - so reg mark position is determined by the pattern
after you print page it is important that the printed page is return to the printer in the correct orientation the the other side it printed correctly

Ti ensure this I would us a pen to mark the edge of the paper that will feed into the printer first then after the first page is printed return that page to the printer so that marked top edge will also feed into the printer first although flipped over so the other side of the paper is printing on
Hope this makes some sense