Epson Printer Drivers supplied by Apple

Question

Epson Printer Drivers supplied by Apple

I have an Epson XP-760 all-in-one printer on a Mac mini, MacOS 10.14.1 (Mojave). I need information and advice regarding the bewildering and confusing printing options available when printing multipage pdf documents, so I contacted Epson. They told me that, since updates to the printer driver are provided by Apple through System Preferences/Printers & Scanners, I should contact Apple. But this matter is too complicated to be satisfactorily dealt with by phone or chat, and I can find no way of emailing Apple with an enquiry of this nature. I should be very grateful for answers to my questions (as below), or information on how to email Apple with my questions.

I want to print a 2-page or multi-page A4 portrait-format PDF document from Preview.app. When I access 'Printer features' in the print dialog, I see both '2-sided printing' and 'Two-sided printing' (which is confusing enough). Whichever combination of settings in these two categories I select, the second side of the document is printed upside down.

If I select both these two options and then experiment with 'Duplex Tumble', I have three more options: 'None', 'DuplexNoTumble' and 'DuplexTumble'. Only if I select 'DuplexNoTumble', do I finally obtain 2-sided prints with the second side the right way up.

I attach a screen shot of the lower part of the list of printing options.

PS: If I open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and choose 'Printer' in the print dialog instead of 'Page Setup…', I get the usual simple print dialog in which I can select two-sided printing in the ordinary way.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Nov 12, 2018 11:08 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,144 points

Nov 13, 2018 1:23 PM in response to Michael Graubart

Do you have the ability to select an AirPrint driver over the Epson "whatever" series drivers? You may have to Add the printer, again, and select the opposite driver from what you currently have selected. It might offer different options.

Reply

Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,144 points

Nov 12, 2018 3:05 PM in response to Michael Graubart

It's unfortunate, but quit common that your questions at Epson were answered by an idiot. Epson creates the drivers. Apple just bundles them. Epson is the only ones that can explain the features included with their printers.

This may also be some interaction with Acrobat DC. Do you get the same results when you try to print with any other app? I don't use Acrobat DC on my Mac, but my Epson printer has a "Two-sided" checkbox and a "Two-sided" option in the Layout options. I would assume that the "2-sided" might be an Acrobat side effect.

I do use Acrobat on Windows at work and it modifies the default printer page on Windows, also.

Reply

Answer 3

Nov 12, 2018 3:17 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks very much for that very helpful reply - especially confirming what I had always assumed: that Epson makes the drivers.

Just to summarize, with the Adobe app, the 2-sided option in a pdf document is simple, just as it is with Word or Pages documents. With Preview, the 2-sided option is there - twice-over, 2-sided and two-sided - but surrounded with complications that I would like instructions for.

Armed with your reply, I shall attack Epson again.

Reply

Answer 4

Nov 13, 2018 1:40 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks, Barney-15E. I have had the AirPrint driver for my printer on my system for a long time, despite Epson telling me off and saying that I should not have installed two drivers. The AirPrint one does double-sided very straightforwardly, in Preview as well as in other apps. But since the principal (non-AirPrint) driver offers one a list of potentially useful facilities (concerning colour and other matters that may help one, for instance, to print photos well) that are not available with the AirPrint one, it seems to me that I am justified in asking Epson how to use them. Here is the gist of the last two emails between Epson Level 1 and me:

Epson: 'You are using the correct driver which is created by Epson but the design of how it appears on the Mac is created by Apple which means we do not have detailed information on what options will be where and what to select for certain settings.'

My reply: 'This is beginning to make more sense. So Epson do create the driver. But I am not asking about 'how it [the driver's various functions] appears on the Mac' (my italics), but what the functions are — in particular, 'Duplex Tumble' and its three options. Please obtain this information for me.'

Reply

Epson Printer Drivers supplied by Apple

Similar questions