Monday, August 25, 2014

Exercise in Futility

So it's the day before classes start for the fall and that means what?  Regular readers will know.

So, yes, the copier was apoplectic.  Truth be told it might have been salvageable, but I didn't have it in me (it would have required at least one power-up cycle optimistically and that cycle is like 20 minutes).  Tomorrow I have one class and of course I need copies of the syllabus.

The syllabus is 8 pages and there are 10 people in class, so running it out of a printer isn't monumentally wasteful but I decided that if I am going to run them that way I ought to at least try to print them double sided - even if that means I have to staple them myself.

The laser-writer doesn't have a duplexer, but the driver has a "manual" mode for double sided printing.  Basically it runs half the pages and then you reload the pages and it prints the backs.

How hard can it be?

On the first attempt the printer mixed my job with another print job.  It is possible a third party was involved in this screwup.  40 pages in the recycling.

Second attempt the printer didn't stop for me to reload and ran 40 fronts and then maybe 20 backs before I saw the SNAFU and cancelled.  So here I learn that for this to work, for some reason Tray 2 has to be empty to force the pause.  60 pages in the recycling.

Third attempt I get the 40 fronts and the pause.  I reload into the previously emptied Tray 2 in the configuration shown in the instructions and... I get 10 backs printed on the fronts.  Fair enough, even though the instructions say print side up, the print side goes down.  40 pages in the recycling.

BTW, did you catch the wrinkle there?  If I have to turn the pack over it also reverses the page order.  But the printer doesn't want the order reversed, just the position.  So during the pause before reloading I have to re-stack the whole packet by hand.  Not quite as bad as having to collate, but certainly not user friendly.

Attempt four, I think I've got it: 40 fronts, pause, re-stack, reload, 40 backs on the back!

Upside down.

:-(  40 sheets in the recycling.

Attempt five: 40 fronts and 40 backs.  Off to my office to staple.

Final score:

10 syllabi, 8 pages, one side per page: potentially 80 sheets.
10 syllabi, 8 pages, two sides per page: actually 220 sheets.

So much for saving some resources; and let's not even talk about the toner.  At least I'll know for next time.

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