Ubuntu – Print double sided and multiple pages on Ubuntu

Either approach should be fine. It's often best to use the application's print dialog rather than the printer's as the application has more information about the document in its control.

For the 'flip on x edge' question, it depends on the layout of your booklet. If your booklet is A4 sheets folded (and so each page of the booklet is an A5 page, 4 per sheet) then you want 'flip on short edge'.

The way to think about it is to imagine holding a finished sheet of your duplexed printout and turning it over so that the text stays the correct way up. If you imagined turning it over the short side, then select 'flip on short edge'.

Another rule of thumb is if the finished sheet is in landscape then flip on short edge, otherwise flip on long edge:

------------------------------
|             |              |
|   Text      |   Text       |
|   Page 1    |   Page 2     |   <--- Single sheet of paper
|             |              |
|             |              |
------------------------------

Select 'Flip on short edge'

---------------
|             |
|   Text      |
|   Page 1    |                  <--- Single sheet of paper
|             |
|             |
|             |
|             |
---------------

Select 'Flip on long edge'

The way I do it:

• Print all web pages to separate PDFs (single page per sheet!)
• Use pdftk to join the PDFs: pdftk print1.pdf print2.pdf cat output out.pdf
• Use a PDF viewer to print out.pdf with 4 pages per sheet

It's a little bit cumbersome, but it works.