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Reader Help / 

Print PDFs

Adobe Community Help


Products Affected

  • Reader XI
 
By clicking Submit, you accept the Adobe Terms of Use.
 

  • Print button missing?
  • Common printing tasks
  • Why can’t I print my document?
  • Simulate overprinting of inks
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Print button missing?

If you can't see the Print and Cancel buttons, your monitor is set to a low screen resolution. Reader wasn't designed for low-resolution displays (the minimum recommended is 1024 x 768). However, you can work around this limitation. Do any of the following to print your document:

  • Press Enter or Return.
  • If a scroll bar appears on the right of the dialog box, drag the slider down to access the buttons.

(Windows) On some monitors, the Windows taskbar covers the Print button. You can hide the taskbar so it appears only when you mouse to the very bottom of the screen. Right-click the taskbar and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog box, select Auto-hide the Taskbar, then click OK.



Set the Taskbar properties to hide the taskbar so you can select the Print button
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Common printing tasks

Print on both sides

You can print double-sided if your printer supports that feature. The printer driver controls the options, not Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. Check your printer documentation to see what features your printer supports. (Double-sided printing is also called duplex, back to back, front and back, or two-sided printing.)

In the Print dialog box, enable Print on both sides of paper, and choose an edge to Flip.




Print in black and white

You can print a color PDF in shades of gray (also known as grayscale or composite gray).

  • In the Print dialog box, enable Print in grayscale.



Print at a different size

You can scale the page to shrink or enlarge pages when you print. You can automatically scale to fit the paper or manually scale by percentages

  • In the Print dialog box, click Size and then specify the scaling options.



Print large-size documents

You can print a large format document, such as a poster or banner, by splitting the page across multiple sheets of paper (called "tiling"). The Poster option calculates how many sheets of paper are needed. You can adjust the size of the original to best fit the paper and specify how much each "tile" overlaps. You can then piece together the tiles.

  • In the Print dialog box, click Poster and then specify the tiling options.



Print multiple pages on a sheet

You can print more than one page of a PDF onto a single sheet of paper. Printing multiple pages per sheet is also called n-up printing (such as 2-up or 6-up). You can specify how the pages are ordered, either horizontally across the page or in vertical columns.




Print booklets

You can print a multipage document as a booklet. The pages are laid out two per sheet. When you collate, fold, and staple the double-sided sheets, the result is a single book with the correct page order.

  • In the Print dialog box, click Booklet and then specify the booklet options.


For step-by-step instructions, see Print Booklets and PDFs.


Print comments

You can print comments either in place (like sticky notes on a page), or  in a list or summary.

In the Comments and Forms area, do one of the following:

  • Choose a option from the drop-down list
  • Click Summarize Comments.



Print a portion of a page

You can print a portion of a page in a PDF. Use the Snapshot Tool (Edit > Take a Snapshot) to select just the area you want to print. The area can be text, graphics, or both. You can print the selected area full size or resize it to fit the paper.

  1. Choose Edit > Take a Snapshot
  2. Draw a rectangle to select a portion of a page
  3. Choose File > Print
  4. In the Print dialog box, click Selected graphic.



To the top

Why can’t I print my document?

Start with these troubleshooting tips

Printing problems can have various causes. To identify the issue, start with this helpful tech note: Troubleshoot PDF printing | Acrobat, Reader

The PDF is password protected, and printing is not allowed

If you receive a password-protected PDF, enter the designated password to print the document. Some protected documents have restrictions that prevent you from printing, editing, or copying content in the document. If a document has restrictions on printing, contact the PDF author.

(Windows only) Protected Mode is interfering

The default Protected Mode greatly enhances the security of Reader. To determine if Protected Mode is interfering with printing, temporarily disable it. Right-click the document, and choose Document Properties. Click Advanced, to view if protected mode is enabled.

To disable protected mode, choose Edit > Preferences and click Security (Enhanced) on the left. Deselect Enable Protected Mode At Startup. Close Reader, restart it, and try to print the document again.

Note:

To ensure maximum security, when you finish printing, reselect Enable Protected Mode At Startup.

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Simulate overprinting of inks

Overprint simulation approximates how blending and overprinting of colored artwork looks when printed on an offset press. You can simulate the effects of overprinting on a color desktop printer by selecting Simulate Overprinting in the Advanced Print Setup dialog box. Overprint simulation converts spot colors to process colors for printing. If you intend to use a file for final output, do not select Simulate Overprinting.

Note:

Color printers vary greatly in color reproduction quality. For that reason, proofs from a service provider are the best way to verify how the finished piece will look.



Three overlapping circles without overprinting (left) compared to three overlapping circles with overprinting (right).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License  Twitter™ and Facebook posts are not covered under the terms of Creative Commons.

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