I am trying to set duplex as the default for my printer. Many people have told me to just create a preset and use that but there are some apps that this doesn't work for, so I am looking for a different solution. Another option I have found is to modify the CUPS settings on my mac for the printer. If I go into CUPS page for my printer, I change the two sided setting to on with long edge binding to be the default. This gives me an error though and wants me to change the default paper size to "A4 two sided margins". So I do that. Now whenever I go to print something, I get an error message come up:
"Changing the destination paper to A4 would cause a conflict that cannot be resolved. No change will be made."
The only thing I think could be causing this is that the default paper size setting in the printers section of system preferences is set to A4. There is no A4 Two sided margins option to select there. Maybe something else is causing the error.
Any suggestions on how I could fix this?
Running Mac 10.9.4 and HP Photosmart 5520.
Best Answer
An answer I posted on the HP forums http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Mac-Printing-and-Scanning/Trouble-trying-to-set-duplex-printing-as-default/m-p/4541236/highlight/false#M52949
I think I have found an interim solution, however, HP you MUST FIX THIS! This is a terrible way of having to set it up and it definiterly does not encourage me to buy HP products in the future. Please fix this and push a Mac driver update or printer firmware update or whatever is required.
Here is what I had to do but I am not confident that it is going to actually work all of the time :/
The different applications seem to have different key names for each of the individual settings in a printing preset. So a preset made in Safari would not work properly in MS Office. However, if you create a preset in Word it sort of works in Safari. In Word's print dialog, I first set the paper size to scale to "A4 Two sided margins", then selected the two sided print option and saved this as a preset. Here's the weird part; the two-sided checkbox is ticked if I select the preset but if I go into the "show Presets" option that shows the details of the presets, it says that two-sided printing is off! The same weird thing happens in Safari's print dialog. It is because of this contradiction that I don't really trust this solution but it seems to work for now.
HP FIX THIS PLEASE!