Printing duplex in reverse order does not work from many applications

I assume you get double-sided sheets. The expected order of printing for a 3-page document is on the first sheet at first a blank page and on the back side page 3. This sheet gets laid down with page 3 to the top. Then on the second sheet psge 2 is printed at first, the sheet is then turned over and page 1 printed on it. The sheet gets then laid down with page 1 to the top. So the pages are perfectly laid down in the correct order and one can immediately staple them. For me this works with a fully up-to-date Jaunty on an HP inkjet with duplex unit (HP PhotoSmart C8100) and the PPD files of either HPLIP 2.8.7 (from Intrepid) or 3.9.2 (from Jaunty).

Please do at first a complete system update, eithwr by clicking the appropriate tray icon and following the instructions of the update manager or by entering the following commands in a terminal window:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

If your printout still does not come out correctly, please attach your input file and tell how you exactly have printed it (application, option settings, ...). Create also an error_log output as described in the "CUPS error_log" section of

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems

Yes I do get double-sided sheets. But the printer prints first the third page, then on the other side the second page. The sheet gets laid down with side 2 on the top. Then page 1 gets printed and the sheet get laid down with an empty page on the top.

I attached a document (in fact it happens with every document) from which I wanted to print the first 3 pages.
As well I attached the error_log.

I forgot to mention that I used documentviewer to print. But I can confirm the bug as well for OpenOffice and other applications.

Can you also add your PPD file (/etc/cups/ppd/deskjet-5550.ppd)?

I could reproduce the bug now.

It is not a CUPS problem. If you send a multiple-page PostScript or PDF file directly to CUPS (with the "lp" or "lpr" command) the printout is always correct.

The problem is in Evince or even in the GTK printing framework. If the user checks "Reverse" on the first tab of the printing dialog, the PostScript data sent to CUPS are all pages in the reverse order. This means the 3rd page is sent at first, then the 2nd, and in the end the first. So CUPS prints the first two pages it gets onto the first sheet, page 3 in fron and page 2 on the back. Then it prints page 1 onto the front page of the second sheet and leaves the back side blank.

So Evince/GTK should as the best solution simple always send the pages in the original order and add an IPP attribute for the reverse printing. So CUPS can arrange it correctly with its pdftopdf or pstops filter.

Alternatively, Evince/GTK can add a blank page to the end of a job with an odd number of pages and duplex set, and reverse the page order only after that, but note that it gets complicated if N-up comes to the place. So my recommendation is to leave all page management to CUPS and so simply send the original document with all page management option settings (options on the first two tabs of the dialog) sent as IPP attributes to CUPS.

If the same problem occurs for OpenOffice.org it should be fixed the same way.

I've seen a similar bug on Jaunty (in my case, printing multiple copies of a document with duplexing enabled would do various incorrect things), but I've been unable to reproduce it or this bug on Karmic.

Alex - are you still having this issue on Karmic?

I'm sorry but I can't provide the informations asked for. I'm no longer using the HP deskjet 5550. On my HP Officejet Pro 8500 under Maverick Meerkat I'm not having this issue.

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

Alexander Kallenbach, marking Incomplete until test with HP deskjet 5550 using non-EoL Ubuntu is done.

[This is an automated message.]
There are no new official OpenOffice.org releases in Ubuntu packaging anymore => Won't Fix

If the problem persists, please mark this bug as "also affects project Libreoffice" or "also affects distribution Libreoffice (Ubuntu)" if that has not happened already.

Please leave references to upstream OpenOffice.org bugs in place to allow cross pollination.

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