Double-Sided Printing to single sheet

In general, Double-sided or back-to-back (Duplex) printing refers to printing an image to both sides of the same piece of paper. Examples of single sheet duplex printing are post cards, brochures, some posters, some flyers, cards. Collateral that are printed to a single sheet of paper, front and back, may have their  layout designed in either inDesign or Illustrator. Collateral involving more than a single paper printed front and back side (in other words, multi-page duplex) should be designed in InDesign, not Illustrator and certainly not in PhotoShop. Examples of these are books, booklets and pamphlets.

To accomplish either with precision requires your attention to several very important steps. Those steps are similar for single-page, as well as multi-page duplex in most ways, but differ in others. Steps for printing to the front and back of many papers, which will become the pages in a book, are described from this link.

Steps for printing to front and back of a single piece of paper are below. Find specific printing instructions for Illustrator, Acrobat and indesign

Double-Sided Printing to a Single Piece of Paper

PRINTING FROM ILLUSTRATOR

    • The easiest and most precise way to assure both sides line up correctly requires centered alignment of the graphics on both front and back pages. To do this, select all of your graphics (on the front page) , GROUP them and keep the group selected. Then locate the align icons located in the top CONTROL window. (if this is not visible, make it so first by looking under the WINDOW option). First choose the “align to Artboard” option (not the align to selection option). Then click the vertical center icon box and the horizontal align box. This will center your group on the page. Repeat this proces for the graphics on the back

Align to Artboard

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  • Notice that in this example the image goes out to the edges of the paper an all sides, so it needs to “bleed” or be extended a bit larger than the artboard to the red lines of the bleed area. Also notice that in this design the type is very close to the edges of the paper, so if not printed correctly it is very possible that the type will be cut off. Because of both of these this design has “critical registration” issues. We will want to set crop (trim) marks when printing this side (but not when printing the back side). PRINT>>MARKS AND BLEED>>TRIM MARKS

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  • After printing this first side (the side which has critical registration issues) pay close attention to how it comes out of the printer. It will be sitting in the output tray of the printer, face down. Do not turn or flip this over. Place it with the same side down, but rotated, back into the paper feed tray. It is now ready for you to print the back side.
  • The back side should not have critical registration issues. Be sure to design the back side design with this important consideration in mind. No type, or other detail, should come close to the edges of the paper, there could be a full bleed, however.
  • The last critical step happens from the print dialog settings. You must reverse the orientation icon from whatever it was when printing the front side to the opposite direction. (So if it was vertical with the head on top the first time, you now need to select vertical with the head on the bottom to print the back). PRINT>>GENERAL>>ORIENTATION
  • Uncheck the TRIM MARKS option for the back side print

FROM ACROBAT (PDF Files)

Follow the same general directions as those for printing from Illustrator with the following changes in the print dialog window.

  • If you have two artboards or two pages in you file, then first Choose Pages to Print =1 to 1
  • DO NOT check the {Print to Both Sides” box
  • After printing the first or top page design, place the print back in the printer tray in exactly the same manner as described above (print side down, page rotated 180 degrees)
  • From the “Printer” button, again select the page range to be 1-1 (the second time you print change the range to 2-2).
  • Double-Sided should be OFF
  • When you print the back side of the design, Click the “Layout” option and select “Reverse Page Direction”. (see image below)

  • Acrobat back side printing setup