PostScript document not printing double-sided

[John A. Murdie]

Johannes Meixner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Mar 5 09:28 John A.Murdie wrote (shortened):
> > I have a PostScript document given to me by a user here
> > which will not print double-sided
> ....
> > Other ... PostScript files print double-sided as expected.
>
> I.e. it depends on how the PostScript file was created.
>
> For example the psutils are known to cause such problems.
> Some time ago on this mailing list the reason was explained:
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> The culprit is the pstops utility from the PSUtils package.
> It inserts a procset into the PS job just after the
> header comments which - among other tings - defines the
> setpagedevice operator as a noop.
> Thus, any defaults defined by your printer's PPD or given
> as options in the print command are just ignored.
> The only chance you'd have is with printers that need things
> like media size, duplexing or the like to be specified by PJL
> commands or with native IPP printers that natively support
> these attributes via the IPP interface.
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>...

Thank you, Johannes - that may well have been the problem. Stupidly, I have accidentally deleted the original file, so have lost the evidence. I could get it back from the archive, but that would take more time than I have at the minute.

>
> I.e. the file was a PDF which was somehow translated into
> PostScript? How was it translated?
>...

The PostScript was actually produced by latex/dvips. I don't know whether they used the PSUtils pstops(1) on it, but I'll warn the user about that, as I know that they do use this sometimes.

What I meant was that had they used a correct PDF to PostScript translator, this problem would not have arisen.

> Kind Regards
> Johannes Meixner

Many thanks,

John A. Murdie