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I have two 1-page documents and double-sided printer. I can print them separately but prefer to print them on two sides of one sheet. The documents have different formats and cannot be merged by their editor tools. Is there a technique to append one print page to another at printer level?

There are PDF, XPS and print to file options which seems attracitve candidates for page shuffling.

Edit 12 Nov 2015: I considered the mechanical alternative, where you print first surface, return the paper into the tray and print the second. But, I would like to avoid it because you need experimentation: you never know which side is printed first. This is aggravated by enterprise printers, which are located far away and used by other people as well. You can spoil their work if place you half-printed sheets at wrong side. I therefore ask for electronical merge/queuing.

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    Print the first one and then turn the paper round and print the second one seems to be the easiest solution.
    – DavidPostill
    Nov 11, 2015 at 18:39
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    Thanks, I considered that. But, we have enterprise printers that are located in distant rooms and you never know which is the surface that printer will print to (it may easily print on top of the first page, which needs experementation). So, I would prefer to combine it electronically and print. Nov 12, 2015 at 9:57

6 Answers 6

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One way is to print into PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to combine files, one after another

enter image description here

Hopefully, there are more open SW solutions.

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  • This solution is not suitable for multiple instances of the same pdf form due to conflict of the fields with the same id.
    – Vadzim
    Apr 22, 2021 at 12:39
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You're asking about duplex printing. You just need a PDF with two pages in succession.

PDFtk is open source. You can download a portable version of PDFtk where you can use it to merge PDFs into one document. This will allow you to perform the duplex printing. I think your best results will be when all documented you want to duplex are of the same dimensions.

You may get odd results with different dimensions (one side tabloid 11x17 and another side letter 8.5x11) depending on the PDF reader your use to print and how to printer decides to handle different page dimensions.

For me, the best print settings for duplex of odd dimensions ended up being this in Acrobat XI:

Acrobat XI duplex print for different page sizes

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In windows we have an option if you have two images (screenshots of document for eg.).

Select them together right click and select print. Now you can print in two side.

No additional software required :-)

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You can create a profile that merges every time two documents.

  1. Create a new profile in Print&Share
  2. Set the output to "Documents are combined into one transmission
  3. Set the auto send&close options to "Number of jobs in queue >= 2"

Optionally: to automatically select that profile you can configure profile recognition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTly9qXQMI

Print&share combine documents

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I had a vaguely related problem: I needed to fax a single page PDF of a semi-confidential nature to someone, along with an added cover page that I wanted to compose ahead of time in MS Word, aka not using the fax software cover page feature. I wanted to complete this task without printing hard copy, without buying commercial PDF editing software, and without resorting to online shareware/freeware tools that might possibly leak my PDF document.

The solution I used was to embed the PDF document as an object into the second page of my MS Word cover page document, as described in the Microsoft Office help article, Add a PDF to your Office file. In MS Word 2016 use:

Insert > Text > Object

In your application most likely it would work to save both your documents as PDFs, embedded them both into successive pages of a two page MS Word document, then voila.

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An old question, but still relevant - I had the need. I've found a solution which works on the platform I use, and might suggest answers for other cases. In my case I print from a computer I control to a networked printer. The details: Windows 10/64; Brother laser printer; free Foxit PDF Reader v 9.7.2.29539 (the last version that supports a PDF printer available to other processes, not relevant here). The essential point is that Foxit Reader has an option to batch-print (not very obvious; I discovered it after years of use. Other PDF software may have similar facilities). So long as the documents to double-side are all PDF, and all print correctly with the same settings, batch-print them, making sure to set the printer properties to print double-sided.

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