Your user manual will be on the CD that came with your printer. It will be in PDF format. Drag the document from your CD onto your computer into a suitable place, like; My Documents/PDFs, for eg.
For your printer to work correctly, Control Panel/Printers/Right Click your printer/ and you should see either printing preferences or properties.
Click as appropriate. Normally in the Advanced bit ( I don't know as you have not included your printer model, so jus' guessin') you will see an option to 'Reverse Order'. If it has a tick in it, untick it and vice versa.
Duplex will normally only happen if you select it. (again a guess for your model) Same as wanting to print onto 4x6 photopaper. You have to drill down the menu's to get what you want.
You can also make a printer setting as a shortcut for a specific job. For example, right click in your printer folder and select 'New printer'. Make a portrait/greyscale/draft, setup and save your settings and you will have a new printer icon in your printer folder. Name it 'Draft print' for example. Then any time you want to save some ink, select your 'Draft' printer icon. You could have any number of different icons for your HP, all doing different things, depending on your task. Just remember to select the right tool for the job!