does the HP Deskjet 842C do two sided printing?

[Paul W.]

I got this printer used, but not included was the accessory duplexer unit that goes in the back. Is such an accessory available for this printer?

Failing that, Is there a way to do manual two sided printing? I'm familiar with that technique, but I don't see that option in the driver menu. I'm using whatever driver is included in Windows 10 - which may be limited. I did an online search for a full feature driver but no luck.

Thanks all!

 

[stratman]

Is there a way to do manual two sided printing?

See pages 30-36 of the manual here.

I don't see that option in the driver menu. I'm using whatever driver is included in Windows 10 - which may be limited. I did an online search for a full feature driver but no luck.

HP does not have a Windows 10 driver to support your older printer. This unfortunate information can be found here. Examples of your issue are found in forum discussions on HP which have some recommendations to try, including installing a different printer model's drivers:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printers-Archive-Read-Only/Driver-for-HP842C/td-p/6133665

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/need-deskjet-842c-printer-driver/td-p/5566343

Funny thing... I was unable to locate your printer on HP's web site! However, I think I did see the alternate printer model drivers suggested in the links above.

In this case you either run the printer with Windows 10 drivers, which you are doing, or you use the last HP driver for your printer, whether it be Windows 7 or 8, and install it. You may need to install the older drivers in "Compatibility Mode" to get full(er) functioning.

 

[PeterBJ]

As an optional extra you could add a duplexer unit to some of the HP DeskJet models. I think my HP DJ930C will work with a duplexer if one could be found.

But without a duplexer installed, manual duplex printing is an option for my HP DJ930C even in the Windows Update supplied driver for Windows 10 32 bit.

Here is the print window when printing a Word document. My Word program is the 2007 version. The text is Danish but I think the window will look the same but with English text in an English version Windows 10. Notice I selected "Manual duplex":

I had chosen a 4 page Word document for the duplex test. After having clicked OK the printer started and I got this pop-up window:

This translates to "Remove the printed first page from the tray and place it in the input tray. Then click OK to continue printing.

I think this is not quite clear and my first attempt produced a print with the page sequence 1-4-3-2. The second attempt was successful, I got the proper 1-2-3-4 sequence of pages, but I found the procedure was not logical.

I think the HP DJ 842 C can also do this with a Windows 10 supplied driver. Study the user manual linked to by stratman and I suggest to create a 4 page test document with only a little text per page to save ink when figuring out the proper procedure for manual duplex printing. Don't start a big duplex job before you have figured out the procedure.

This worked for me with a Word document. I have not found out how to do manual duplex printing of a .pdf file with the HP DJ930C.

 

[stratman]

As an optional extra you could add a duplexer unit to some of the HP DeskJet models

Looked for that option with OP's model before. Didn't see it.

 

[PeterBJ]

It seems the duplexer for the HP Deskjet 842 C does exist, here is one but who would pay 70$ for a refurbished unit?

 

[stratman]

Thanks Peter.

 

[Paul W.]

A belated thanks to all of you... plenty for me to chew on.

Regards,

Paul