The method(s) you have to use can depend on the printer, and sometimes there are multiple drivers available for a printer, each offering different options for further variations.

When you click "Print," or the printer icon, in many programs, you may get an "Options" screen that lets you set up the program for special printing choices. Some programs omit this step and send you directly to the printer driver's control screen(s).

A frequent option, when the program offers an options screen is a "Page Setup" button, which may open a window with several tabs, and often one or more buttons on each tab. There may also be an "Options" button that goes to the "Properties" setup for the printer selected. Unfortunately popups at this point frequently don't allow you to select which printer you intend using, so the available choices may depend on the printer you have set as your default.

When you have made your choices on the "program options" popup, you oten will proceed to a popup provided by the driver you have installed for the printer. This popup usually offers a place to choose which printer to use, if you have multiple printers "installed" on the computer. Changing to a different printer may show a completely different choice of settings available - which may or may not be compatible with the "default printer" settings made in the preceding popup.

On this popup (which usually will have multiple tabs) you'll find various boxes and buttons where usually you can make numerous choices.

In addition, you can make "document settings" within some programs, before proceding to the "Print" command, that will pick a default set of choices.

For some program/printer combinations you'll have only one of the above (3) places where choices can be set up. For some you may have any two or all three.

In some cases, where you have more than one of the locations you may find that settings made in one may override the settings made in another of the places. Many programs also have "Quick Print" buttons (usually a Printer icon) that skip all of the options and use some default.

With 5 printers set up, and running them from a half-dozen programs on three or four computers, I can attest that there is very little consistency from one combination to another.

In some cases, you may actually find a selection to print even pages or odd pages only, so that you can print one, reinsert the pages, and print the other on the opposite side of the sheets. With some printer/driver/program combinations, you will have to print either the odd pages or the even pages in "reverse order."

In some cases you may find only a "print both sides" option. When you select this option, the printer (and its driver) will decide which "face" to print first, then will pause - and sometimes tell you to turn the pages over and reinsert them in the printer - after which you have to hit a button to print the opposing face of all the pages.

Printers (actually the drivers) that show a "print both sides" option seldom give you the even/odd numbered pages choice. This simplifies the initial print order, but makes a mess when one page misprints and the odd/even pairs of pages are on the wrong sheets - i.e. printer error recovery is a bitch.

To find the places where you can make the choice you want, you almost always have to go through the typical File|Print|... step(s) since clicking a print icon very often executes a "Quick print" default with no access to any options.

(MS Word 2007 does not offer an even/odd choice (that I've found) with any of the printers I use it with currently. It only offers a "print both sides" choice. My prevous Word 2002 offered the even/odd pages option, but a separate even/odd setting in the print driver for one of my printers "flipped" which actually printed first - reversing the choice set in Word.)

John