MS Word / Excel 2011; print double-sided (OSX)

Environment: OSX 10.9.5, Preview 7.0, Word 1.4.2.4, Excel 1.4.2.4.

---

Missing; a way to select “double-sided” when you print a Word document or Excel spreadsheet in OSX.

Missing; a way to ask for double-sided printing!

Here’s how I solved it:

1. Instead of printing the document, send it to Apple’s Preview program as a .pdf file
2. Print the file in Preview.  You’ll find a checkbox in the print dialog for two-sided printing.

Details:

• Open the file in Word or Excel.
• In the top menu bar, pull down the File menu and pick Print .
• In the Print dialog, click the PDF button in the bottom left corner.  Don’t click Print.
• A floating menu drops down.  Select Open PDF in Preview.

• In Preview, pull down the File menu and pick Print.
• In the Print dialog, check the “two-sided” box.  Click Print. 

MS Word 2011; different header / no header on the first page (OSX)

A typical manuscript formatting requirement is to number all your pages except for the first one.  <RANT> Microsoft manages to bury this seemingly simple task far away from the creation of headers and page numbers.  Then they further obfuscate it with “ribbons” of tools that change with every release, and with confusing online help.  </RANT>

If you’re using Apple’s OSX, you’re in luck.  Instead of ribbons, we can still use menus.  If you’re on Windows, this short procedure may still be helpful.

Click the Fromat menu and select Document.  The Document dialog displays.

Click the Layout tab of the Document dialog.  Adjust it like this screenshot.  Under “Headers and footers” check “Different first page.”  Make sure this applies to the whole document.  (If your document has sections, you’ll need to experiment here.)  Click OK.

Click the View menu and select Header and footer.  The top and bottom of your document are revealed for editing, along with some information and a Close button in blue boxes.

In this example, I only want headers on the pages after the first page.  So I type my header into the top of the second page and click Close.

That’s it!  Happy writing.