Every platform prints PDFs. The three settings that decide whether it comes out right are the same on all of them.
The three settings that matter
Wherever you are printing from, these are the ones that change the output.
- Scaling. "Fit to printable area" is the default and silently resizes. Set Actual size or 100% for anything printed to measure — a form, a drawing, a document with a signature block positioned exactly.
- Duplex binding edge. Long-edge for portrait documents, short-edge for landscape. Choosing wrong prints every other page upside down, and it is the most common double-sided complaint.
- Background graphics. Off by default to save ink. A document with colour behind the text prints white without it.
A fourth worth knowing: Current page versus All. Printing 200 pages because the dialog defaulted to All is expensive and slow, and the setting sits where your eye does not.
Where the menu is
| Platform | How |
|---|---|
| Windows | Ctrl+P from any reader |
| macOS | Cmd+P; "Show Details" reveals the settings that matter |
| iPhone / iPad | Share sheet, then Print; pinch the preview to see pages |
| Android | Share or the three-dot menu, then Print |
| Chromebook | Ctrl+P |
| No printer nearby | Print to PDF, email it, print at the destination |
On macOS the "Show Details" button is the one people miss — the collapsed dialog hides scaling, duplex and page range, which are the three things you probably need.
Black and white, and why it saves less than expected
Printing greyscale is a driver setting, not a document one — look for Colour, then Greyscale or Black and White.
Two things worth knowing. Many inkjets still use colour ink to produce a richer black unless you specifically select "black ink only", so greyscale saves less than expected. And a colour document converted to greyscale can lose meaning — a chart distinguished only by colour becomes indistinguishable grey bands.
If a document will be printed in black and white, that is worth designing for: distinguish series by pattern or label rather than colour alone. It is the same discipline as designing for colour blindness, and it fixes both.
Posters across multiple sheets
Printing an A4 page enlarged across several sheets is called tiling or poster printing, and it is a driver feature rather than a PDF one.
Acrobat has it under Poster in the print dialog; many drivers have an "N-up / Poster" section. It prints overlapping sections you trim and join.
Two practical points: set an overlap of at least 5mm so there is something to trim to, and remember that enlarging a scanned page enlarges its pixels — a 150 DPI scan tiled to A0 is about 37 DPI and visibly soft. Vector content enlarges perfectly, as covered in cropping, resizing and changing margins.
Brightness, contrast and heavy pages
A scanned page that is grey overall, or a design with a dark background, wastes ink and reads poorly on paper.
There is no brightness control in a print dialog. The adjustment has to happen to the document — render the pages to images, adjust levels, and rebuild. For a scan that is uniformly grey, that is genuinely worth doing before printing a long document.
The cheaper fix for a dark design is a print stylesheet or a light-background version of the document. Printing a dark-mode page as-is costs an extraordinary amount of toner and is harder to read than the same content on white.
Printing many files at once
Windows Explorer supports selecting several PDFs, right-clicking and choosing Print — each opens and prints in sequence with the default settings.
The catch is that you get default settings for all of them, with no chance to set scaling or duplex per file. For a consistent batch that is fine; for mixed page sizes it is not.
The more controllable approach is to merge them into one document first with Merge PDF, then print once with the settings you chose. It also gives you a single job in the queue rather than forty, which matters on a shared printer.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my PDF print smaller than it should?
The dialog defaults to "Fit to printable area", which silently resizes. Set Actual size or 100%. If content then runs off the edge, the page is genuinely larger than the paper and scaling was masking it.
Why is every other page upside down when printing double-sided?
The duplex binding edge is wrong. Long-edge for portrait documents, short-edge for landscape. It is the single most common double-sided complaint and a one-setting fix.
How do I print a PDF in black and white?
It is a driver setting — Colour, then Greyscale. Note that many inkjets still mix colour ink for a richer black unless you select "black ink only", so the saving is smaller than expected.
How do I print a poster across several sheets?
Use the driver's Poster or tiling option, with at least 5mm overlap so there is something to trim to. Vector content enlarges perfectly; a scanned page does not — a 150 DPI scan tiled to A0 is about 37 DPI and visibly soft.
Can I make a scanned PDF lighter before printing?
Not from the print dialog — there is no brightness control there. Render the pages to images, adjust levels, and rebuild. For a uniformly grey scan being printed at length, that is worth the effort in toner alone.
How do I print several PDFs at once?
Windows Explorer lets you select multiple files and print them, but with default settings for all. Merging into one document first gives you control over scaling and duplex, and puts a single job in the queue instead of forty.