Printing Two-Sided Cards
Double-Sided Printing Requires Two-Sided Cards
Note that good double-sided printing is not a simple subject. Please read this page carefully and completely before attempting double-sided printing.
See About Two-Sided Cards to learn how to create a layout for your deck's card backs.
Printing is the recommended way to create print-and-play decks for prototyping. If you wish to create output for uploading to print-on-demand services or for digital gaming platforms, see About Exporting.
Selecting which sides to print
When you print, you have the choice of printing just the fronts of your cards, or just the backs, or both sides. These options appear in the Multideck option of the Print panel:
The Print Panel, showing the Multideck options panel
Use the radio buttons to select whether to print fronts only, backs only, or both. (If your deck does not support two-sided cards, the options for Print Card Backs Only and Print Both Sides will not be available.)
Which option should I select?
Some printers have the capability to automatically print on both sides of a sheet of paper. You may or may not wish to take advantage of this feature.Print Both Sides
If your printer supports double-sided printing, and you wish to use that feature, you should select Print Both Sides.When you select this option, Multideck will print every card twice: once for its front and once for its back. The printed pages will alternate fronts and backs: odd-numbered pages will show card fronts, and even-numbered pages will show card backs.
Your printer will print page 1 (card fronts), then automatically retrieve that page, flip it over, and print page 2 (card backs) on the other side. It will continue in this fashion until the job is complete.
Print Card Fronts (Backs) Only
If your printer does not support double-sided printing, or you choose not to use that feature, then you will have to print your cards in two passes (two separate print operations).For the first pass, select Print Card Fronts Only. When printing is complete, take the printed pages, turn them over, and put them back in the printer's paper tray. Then print again, and select Print Card Backs Only.
- The pages are in order, with page 1 at the top of the stack (first to be printed)
- This may require reversing the order of the pages in the stack
- The printed side of the pages is face-down (or face-up depending on your printer) so that the blank side will now be printed
- The pages are oriented so that the same edge will be the top of the page for both sides
If the pages are not correctly ordered and oriented when printing the card backs, the card backs will not correctly match the card fronts.
My card backs are upside-down!
If you use your printer's two-sided printing capability, there is a chance that in some cases (for example, when printing in landscape orientation) the printer may print the card back pages upside-down with respect to the card fronts.If you have this problem, select the Rotate Card Back Pages 180° option.
About Registration (inaccurate placement)
Registration refers to how precisely the printed area is placed on the page. Few printers can accomplish perfect placement. It is common for there to be as much as 1/8" variation from perfection in placement. This is true of home printers as well as for print-on-demand services.Poor registration means that the card fronts and card backs may not be perfectly aligned. Multideck offers features for coping with this problem.
Card Spacing
If you are concerned about registration problems, we recommend putting some space between the cards on each page.Before you print, open the Print Options by clicking the Print Option button in the toolbar, or by selecting the menu command File > Print Options.
The Print Options dialog
Select Enable Card Spacing, and enter values for horizontal and vertical spacing. We recommend a spacing of 0.25 inches for both. This will allow space for your registration to be off by as much as 1/8" in opposite directions on each side of the printed pages.