Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 7, 2025)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365
Jim has a fifty-page document. Most of the pages need to be printed single-sided, but about twenty of them need to be printed double-sided. He wonders if there is a way to set up the document to print duplex on specific pages only.
The short answer is that this cannot be done in Word. The reason is that duplexing (printing on both sides) is handled by the printer driver, not by Word itself. There is no command within Word that specifies whether an entire document (let alone a portion of a document) should be printed duplex or not.
Because of this, there are two potential workarounds. First, you can, within Word, control which pages are printed. So, do a print pass for those pages that should be printed single sided, then do a print pass for those pages to be printed in duplex. (You'll need to set your printer driver to duplex during the second print pass, of course.) You can then assemble the printed pages into the final order you want.
The second potential workaround involves creating a PDF file. You can either print the document to a PDF file or save it to a PDF file. Then, within a PDF editor (such as Adobe Acrobat), you can insert blank pages after all the pages that you want printed single sided. This will, of course, greatly increase the number of pages in your document. However, you can then print the entire PDF file in duplex and you will have the results you want—some pages appear to be single sided, but others are printed double-sided.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (8664) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024, and Word in Microsoft 365.
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