Match the symptom to the cause: small with wide margins is scaling, content cut off is page size mismatch, sideways is orientation, extra sheets are blank pages in the file.
When nothing else works, print as image. It bypasses fonts and transparency entirely and almost always produces correct output.
Printing is where problems that were invisible on screen become expensive in paper. A screen scales a page to fit the window and forgives a great deal. A printer has a fixed sheet, a physical margin it cannot print into, and no ability to reflow anything.
Everything is small with wide margins
The commonest complaint, and almost always the fit-to-page setting. Most print dialogs default to shrinking content slightly so nothing is lost to the printer's unprintable edge.
The cost is a document printed at 94 or 96 percent, sitting in the middle of the sheet with more white space than it should have. On a text document nobody notices. On anything where size matters, such as a form, a scale drawing or a document that has to match a physical original, it is a real problem.
Content is cut off at the edges
This is a size mismatch. A document laid out for US Letter printed on A4, or the reverse, loses content because the sheets are different shapes.
- A4210 by 297 mm
- US Letter216 by 279 mm
- Letter is wider by6 mm
- A4 is taller by18 mm
- Printing A4 on LetterLoses the bottom
- Printing Letter on A4Loses the sides
Fit to page solves it at the cost of scaling, which is the right trade for most documents. When exact size matters, the document needs re-laying out for the paper you actually have rather than being squeezed onto it.
Pages print sideways
Either the print dialog is set to the wrong orientation, or the document genuinely contains pages of mixed orientation and the dialog applies one setting to all of them.
Mixed orientation is common in reports where a wide table is rotated to landscape among portrait pages. Most print dialogs offer an automatic option that follows each page's own orientation, and choosing it resolves this without splitting the document.
Extra blank sheets
Usually blank pages that are genuinely in the file, most often from duplex scanning or from trailing empty paragraphs in whatever generated the document. The printer is faithfully reproducing pages that exist.
Occasionally it is a separator page added by the printer driver or a print server, which is a driver setting rather than anything in the document. Checking the page count in the reader against the sheets produced tells you which.
Wrong characters or substituted fonts
Text that prints in a different typeface, or with boxes and question marks where characters should be, means the font is not embedded in the file and the printer does not have it.
Screen and printer can disagree here, because your computer may have the font while the printer does not. A document that previews perfectly can still print wrong for this reason, particularly on network printers that render the document themselves rather than receiving a rasterised image.
Print as image
When the cause is unclear or nothing has worked, this setting resolves most remaining cases. It tells the reader to rasterise each page on your machine and send the printer a picture rather than a set of drawing instructions.
By removing the printer's job
- Font substitution, since fonts are already rendered
- Transparency and blending errors
- Complex vector artwork that stalls the printer
- Driver-specific rendering bugs
- Pages that print blank for no clear reason
The trade you are making
- Noticeably slower to print
- Much more data sent to the printer
- Text slightly softer than native rendering
- Quality depends on the rasterising resolution
- Not a fix for scaling or paper size issues
Every PDFslime tool in one place
Merge, split, compress, protect and more, all running in your browser with nothing uploaded.
Common questions
After the first bad print.
01Why does my PDF print smaller than it should?
The print dialog is scaling it, usually with a fit to printable area setting that shrinks content slightly to avoid the printer's unprintable margin. Choose Actual size or 100 percent instead.
02Why is content cut off at the edges?
The document's page size does not match the paper. A4 and US Letter differ in both dimensions, so one always loses content when printed on the other. Fit to page solves it if some scaling is acceptable.
03Why are some pages printing sideways?
Either the orientation setting applies one direction to the whole document, or the file genuinely contains mixed orientations. Choose the automatic or portrait-and-landscape option so each page follows its own setting.
04Why am I getting blank sheets between pages?
Most likely blank pages in the document itself, often from duplex scanning. Compare the page count in your reader with the sheets produced. If the document has fewer pages than sheets printed, the printer driver is adding separators.
05Why does the printed text use a different font?
The font was not embedded in the PDF and the printer does not have it, so it substituted. Your computer may have the font, which is why the preview looks right. Printing as image avoids the problem by rendering the text before it reaches the printer.
06What does print as image actually do?
It rasterises each page on your computer and sends the printer a picture rather than drawing instructions. That removes fonts, transparency and vector complexity from the printer's job, which fixes a wide range of faults at the cost of speed and a slight softening of text.