Booklet Printing Problems

[RWHegwood]

I am trying to print a 20 page booket on 8.5 X 11 paper, 2 pages per leaf.
Everything looks fine on screen. However, when I print it will not print the
pages in the correct order. The first page prints fine (page 20 and 1).
Though I did not tell it to it continues to print the next set (2 and 19).
Though I did not want it to print 2/19 it is printed correctly on the page.
My intent was to turn the 20/1 page over and print 2/19 on the back...and so
on throughout the booklet.

From this point the world gets very confusing. If I tell it to print 2/19,
it does...sort of. It prints them on seperate pages in the wrong spot on
those pages, the 2 on the side the 19 should be on and the 19 on the side the
2 should be on, and each on a seperate sheet of paper. Then it gets worse.
If I tell it to print page 3 it prints page 19. If I tell it to print page 4
I get page 20. If I say print page 6 I get page 17.

I do have the print instructions set for borderless printing and I lie to it
about the paper type so that it will print borderless...but that should not
effect page printing I don't think.

The computer is new (Daktech) and the printer is new (Epson all in one CX7400)

If anyone can help I would appreciate it. This is baffling.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Unless your printer duplexes automatically, you will need to check "Manual
duplex" in the Print dialog to make Word hold the back sides of the sheets
for the flip-over run. My experience with printing selected pages of a
booklet is pretty dismal. In theory, if you select a given page, Word is
supposed to print all four pages that would print on that sheet, but, even
when I specify the exact pages in the correct order, I find that Word
frequently does no such thing but instead prints blank pages or the pages in
the wrong place, as you have seen.

 

[RWHegwood]

Thanks for trying.

I checked 'manual duplex' as you suggested. I told it to print page 2. It
showed a dialogue box telling me to flip my page or something like that then
hit OK. I hit OK and it squirted out a blank sheet then printed page 19 on
the following sheet...a half sheet out of place. Then I told it to print
page 16. It gave the same dialogue. I hit OK. It spit out a blank sheet then
crashed Word. I reopened word and tried again with another page...same
thing...spit out a blank then crashed.

This is vexing...I may have to see if I can make it work in Publisher.

 

[Mary Sauer]

It will work great in Publisher...

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I wasn't suggesting that "Manual duplex" would help in printing specific
pages; the only luck I've ever had with printing booklets was in printing
the entire thing, single-sided as camera-ready copy for commercial offset
printing. Or I convert them to PDF to send to a printer.

 

[RWHegwood]

Thanks. I tried printing the whole thing on manual duplex and it came out as
it was supposed to. I flipped the pages when the first batch was done and it
was smooth sailing....slow sailing but smooth.

The problem now is that I better find all erratta and fix any page design
flaws I see now because the whole thing will have to be reprinted to correct
any problem...which would be a lot easier of course if you could just reprint
the problem page. But then I suppose you know that. Thanks for the help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Yes, this is why I don't use "Book fold" for any but the shortest booklets
(some booklets I do are up to 100 pages) or ones that will be printed as
PDFs. In some other cases I use the method described at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/BookletPrinting.htm