What Are the Two Types of Duplex Printing?

Laser and inkjet printers nowadays are commonly equipped with automatic duplex printing feature. Some were offering it as an optional upgrade which users may either add or not depending on their choice and needs. Basically, duplexing can also be done manually regardless if the printer supports such feature or not. But what exactly is this duplex printing capability that we often see when reading about the specs of a certain printer?

Duplex or double-sided printing allows printing on both sides of a page. Pages of books and magazines are good examples of what a duplexer can be useful for. A printer that supports the said feature may either be set to print in automatic duplex or manual duplex mode. Brother solutions provide a brief explanation of this two printing modes, read through below:

In Automatic Duplex Printing Mode, users set their printer to automatically execute duplexing either from the main input tray or the multipurpose tray. While Manual Duplex Printing Mode, on the other hand, requires human intervention. Since there are such media types that can only fit from the multipurpose tray, users have to print first all the front pages and reload the sheets back to the tray to print on the other side of the page.

To set the printer driver to print in duplex mode, below are the instructions which you can try with your own unit to test duplex feature. On our test, we use the Brother HL-4150CDN with Brother TN315 toner cartridges installed. 

First, open the sample document on a windows application such as Microsoft Word (applicable on computers and laptops running in Microsoft Windows OS). For the long method, click “File”, select “Print” and wait for a dialogue box to appear. While the short method is by simply hitting “CTRL + P”, the same dialogue box will appear.

Click “Properties”, another dialogue box will appear and from there, select the “Paper/Output” tab, look closely below and locate the “Duplex Print” pull down menu and select the option you prefer. It depends on your preferences but there are two options for you, it’s either Long-Edge Binding or Short-Edge binding.

See the images below to know their differences:

Long-Edge Binding         

Short-Edge Binding

To simply differentiate these two, long-edge is when you turn from one page to the next along the long side/edge of the paper sheet. While short-edge on the other hand is literally the opposite, turning the page from the short side/edge of the sheet. Typical books are good examples of long-edge printer materials, while sketch pads are examples for short-edge.