Brother Printer Not Printing Both Sides – How to Fix It

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If your Brother printer is not printing on both sides of the paper, it may be due to duplex printing not being enabled, incorrect settings, incompatible print drivers, or a printer model that doesn’t support automatic duplexing. Here are the steps to identify and fix the problem.

Check If Your Brother Printer Supports Duplex Printing
  1. Look up your printer model on the Brother Support website.
  2. Confirm whether it supports automatic duplex (double-sided) printing.
  3. If not, you will need to use manual duplex printing instead.

Enable Duplex Printing in Printer Settings

On Windows
  1. Open Control Panel > Devices and Printers.
  2. Right-click your Brother printer and choose Printing Preferences.
  3. Go to the Basic or Finishing tab.
  4. Check the box for Duplex Printing (Manual or Auto).
  5. Click Apply and then OK.

On macOS
  1. Open System Settings > Printers & Scanners.
  2. Select your Brother printer and click Options & Supplies.
  3. In the Options tab, ensure Duplex Unit is enabled.
  4. When printing, select Two-Sided > Long-edge binding in the print dialog.

Check Application-Specific Settings
  1. In programs like Microsoft Word, go to File > Print.
  2. Ensure the “Print on both sides” option is selected.
  3. If the option is missing, your printer driver may not be correctly installed.

Update or Reinstall Brother Printer Driver
  1. Go to the Brother Support website and download the Full Driver & Software Package for your model.
  2. Uninstall the existing driver from your system.
  3. Install the updated driver and restart your computer.

Check Paper Type and Tray Settings
  1. On the printer control panel, go to Settings > Tray Settings.
  2. Confirm that Paper Type is set to Plain or a duplex-compatible type.
  3. Some specialty papers like thick or glossy may disable double-sided printing.

Use Manual Duplex Printing (if automatic is not available)

On Windows
  1. Go to Printing Preferences.
  2. Enable Manual Duplex Printing.
  3. The printer will print one side, then prompt you to reload the paper.

On macOS
  1. In the print dialog, select Layout > Two-Sided > Off.
  2. Print the odd pages first.
  3. Reinsert the pages and print the even pages.

Reset Print Settings
  1. Open the Brother printer’s settings menu.
  2. Navigate to Initial Setup > Reset > All Settings.
  3. Confirm the reset and reconfigure the duplex option.

If the printer still does not print both sides after these steps, verify the model capabilities again or contact Brother Support for hardware-related issues.