How to Print

Set the scale to 100%

This is the one setting that matters. Browsers and PDF readers default to shrinking a page to fit the printable area, which comes out around 94–97% of the intended size. On a colouring page nobody notices. On a handwriting sheet it matters, because the distance between the baseline and the midline is what tells a child how tall to make a letter.

In the print dialogue find Scale, Page Sizing or Page Scaling and choose 100% or Actual size. Avoid Fit to page, Shrink oversized pages and Fit to printable area.

• Chrome / Edge — expand More settings, set Scale to Custom, type 100
• Firefox — set Scale to 100%, not Fit to page width
• Safari — untick Scale to fit
• Adobe Acrobat Reader — under Page Sizing & Handling, choose Actual size

A4 or US Letter?

Every worksheet here is laid out on A4 with margins wide enough that nothing is lost on US Letter. Letter is a little wider and a little shorter, so you will see slightly more space at the sides and slightly less top and bottom. Leave your paper size set to whatever is in the tray.

Save ink

• Print in greyscale unless the sheet says it needs colour. Only the colour-by-key sheets do.
• Use draft or econofast quality — tracing guides do not need photo quality.
• Ordinary 80gsm copier paper is fine. Heavier paper only helps if your child presses very hard or you plan to use paint.

Make one sheet last a month

Slide the printed page into a clear plastic pocket, or laminate it, and let your child work with a dry-wipe marker. Wipe and repeat. For tracing sheets this is much better than reprinting, because the repetition is the point.

A cheap alternative: put the sheet in a zip-lock freezer bag.

Printing several at once

If you are printing a whole pack, most print dialogues let you put two pages per sheet. For colouring pages that halves your paper use and the picture is still plenty big. Do not do this for handwriting sheets — it defeats the point of printing at 100%.

Common problems

The bottom of the page is cut off. Your printer's margins are larger than the file expects. Check that scaling is at 100% and that you have not selected a borderless or photo paper setting.

Everything prints tiny in a corner. The paper size in the dialogue does not match the paper in the tray. Set it to A4 or Letter to match.

The lines are too faint. You are probably in draft mode with a low ink cartridge. Tracing guides are meant to be light grey, but they should be clearly visible.

No printer?

You can still use these. Open the PDF on a tablet and let your child trace over the screen with a stylus in any drawing app, or take the file to a print shop — most will print a batch of black-and-white A4 pages for very little.