In HP Printer, what do "flip over" and "flip up" mean?

1. "Flip over" means which of four possibilities below?

2. "Flip up?

3 Answers

Flip over means Long Edge and Flip Up means short edge. This affects how you see the other side. I normally use Long Edge.

It may depend upon the orientation of your document. If your document is in portrait mode, you have to use flip over i.e. long edge and if your document is in landscape mode, you have to use flip up i.e. short edge.

Flip over/up is the way you will flip the pages in the printed document.

It does depend on whether you are using Portrait or Landscape printing. Flip Over means "flip the page from left to right" (like a book). Flip Up is "flip the page from bottom to top" (like a notepad).

Hence, for Portrait printing, "flip over" is the top right of the 4 images, "flip up" is bottom right. For Landscape printing "flip over" is bottom left and "flip up" is top left.

With Portrait printing this is all quite obvious, as that is the way you normally handle a book. However, when printing Landscape, it can be confusing. In Landscape you rarely flip the pages as with a book; it's more likely you'll flip them like a notepad - but your use may be different.

The descriptions as provided do not get to the point.

The actual consequence between up and over is the motion a user will have to choose to see the next page of output.

The printers 'flipping process' includes the proper motions for the duplexor so that the outcome will match the 'manner of flipping' the user wants to be 'normal' for the current document in the printer.

Choosing 'flip up' means that after viewing the first page, you want to grab that page at the bottom and 'flip it up' and the text will continue from the bottom of the first page ond flow downward starting at the top of the 'back of the first page'.

After reading the back of the first page in a downward-motion, the front of the second page will also be read in a downward motion from the top of the second page to the bottom of the second page.

All pages in the document will be flipped up from the bottom to expost the text running downward on the back of the previous page.

This would be realistic for table-type rows of data in landscape mode.

For portrait mode, you want to choose 'flip-over'. This actually is like a book if you actually staple the pages in the top-right corner as most right-handed people will prefer.

Then you 'flip over' the pages by grabbing the right-hand edge of each page and pull it to the left, exposing the back of the previous page. The printer will have printed the next page on the back of the previous page so that the continuation of the text from the previous page will be appropriately located in the top-left corner of each page and the pages will follow a normal read-the-first-page-located-on-the-right-side of the stack and then read-the -next-page-on-the-left side of the stack.

All left hand pages will be printed on the 'back of the page' and all right-hand pages will be printed on the front of the page.

Again, the terminology: flip-over, or flip-up refers to the way you want to read the printed pages after the document has been printed.

Trying to apply the flip-over/flip-up terminology to the way the printer is going to perform the duplex printing process is pointless. Like setting lead type in a print shop, you have to presume that all motions start with all the pages you typed in configured in an 'upside down and backward' orientation.

Its highly unlikely that a normal computer user will imagine this pattern of motion correctly and thereby be able to get their desired result by studying the operation of the printer's duplexing motions.

If you want to go to the next page by pulling the bottom of each page up to reveal the next page, choose 'flip up', if you want to go to the next page by pulling the right hand of each page to the left to reveal the next page, choose 'flip over'.

The choice of 'flip-up' and 'flip-over' has pretty obviously been chosen by HP to eliminate the further confusion of having to say something like 'turn the page vertically' and 'turn the page horizontally', which would even be more confusing because that would require having to include 'turn the page vertically (up or down) and turn the page vertically (left or right).

All the existing descriptions are invalid because they do not include complete sentences about the motions a human will have to follow when they select 'flip-up' or 'flip-over', which is the only information a user needs to know, but it must provide the critical information that the flip-terminology applies to how the user want's to move from one page to the next while having the 'next page' visible with the text flowing from the upper left to the lower bottom, the typically 'correct' way of reading in English.

So there!