How to Print Worksheets at the Right Size
Why your printed worksheet comes out smaller than it should, and the one print setting that fixes it.
If you have printed a worksheet and found the letters slightly too small, or a margin mysteriously cut off, the cause is almost always the same single setting.
The problem: "Fit to page" is on by default
Most browsers and PDF readers default to scaling a document down to fit inside your printer's printable area. The result is usually somewhere between 94% and 97% of the intended size. On a colouring page nobody notices. On a handwriting sheet it matters, because the guide lines are sized deliberately: the gap between the baseline and the midline is what tells a child how tall to make a letter.
The fix
In the print dialogue, look for a setting called Scale, Page Sizing or Page Scaling, and set it to one of:
- 100%
- Actual size
- None (in some versions of Adobe Reader)
Avoid Fit to printable area, Shrink oversized pages and Fit to page.
Browser by browser
Chrome and Edge — expand More settings in the print preview, then set Scale to Custom and type 100.
Firefox — under Scale, choose 100% rather than Fit to page width.
Safari — untick Scale to fit, or set the scale field to 100%.
Adobe Acrobat Reader — under Page Sizing & Handling, choose Actual size.
A4 or Letter?
Every worksheet on this site is laid out on A4, with margins wide enough that printing on US Letter paper loses nothing. Letter is slightly wider and slightly shorter than A4, so on Letter you will see marginally more white space at the sides and marginally less at the top and bottom. The content itself is unaffected, and you can leave your paper size set to whatever is loaded in the tray.
Save the ink
A few habits make a real difference when you are printing several sheets a week:
- Print in greyscale unless a sheet specifically calls for colour. Every worksheet here except Colour by Shape is designed to work in black and white.
- Use draft or econofast quality. Tracing guides do not need photo-quality output.
- Print two pages per sheet for colouring pages if your child is happy with a smaller picture — it halves your paper use.
Make one sheet last a month
Slide a printed worksheet into a clear plastic pocket or laminate it, and let your child work on it with a dry-wipe marker. Wipe it clean and it is ready again. For tracing sheets in particular, the repetition is the point, and this saves reprinting the same page twenty times.