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Basic PDF printing tasks

  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. Introducing the new Acrobat experience
    3. What's new in Acrobat
    4. Keyboard shortcuts
    5. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. PDFs converted to web pages
    12. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    13. PDF articles
    14. Geospatial PDFs
    15. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    16. Change the default font for adding text
    17. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to PPTX
    4. Convert PDF to XLSX or XML
    5. Convert PDF to JPG
    6. Convert PDF to PNG
    7. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    8. File format options for PDF export
    9. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. Create a web form
    5. Request e-signatures in bulk
    6. Collect online payments
    7. Brand your account
    8. About certificate signatures
    9. Certificate-based signatures
    10. Validating digital signatures
    11. Adobe Approved Trust List
    12. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
    7. Cloud-based auto-tagging
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

Before you begin

We're rolling out a new, more intuitive product experience. If the screen shown here doesn’t match your product interface, select help for your current experience.

In the new experience, the tools appear on the left side of the screen.

Note:

If you are facing issues printing single-side or double-side on Mac, see Unable to print double-side or single-side in Acrobat on Mac

Common printing tasks

Print on both sides of the paper

You can print double-sided if your printer supports double-sided (duplex printing) feature.  

Note: Double-sided printing is also called duplex, back-to-back, front-and-back, or two-sided printing. The printer driver controls the options, not Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader. Check your printer documentation to see what features your printer supports.

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box. In the Print dialog box, select Print on both sides of paper, and choose an edge to Flip.
Note:

There could be a scenario when a printer actually supports duplex and this option does not appear on Print dialog. In such cases, you may click on printer properties to directly access this option from printer preferences.

Print in black and white

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

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box.
    In the Print dialog box, enable Print In Grayscale (Black And White).

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

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box.
    In the Print dialog box, click Size and then specify the scaling options.

Fit  Reduces or enlarges each page to fit the printable area of the currently selected paper size. For PostScript® printers, the PPD determines the printable area of the paper.

Actual Size  Prints the pages without scaling. Pages or selections that don’t fit on the paper are cropped. You can set this option as the default using the None print preset. See Create print presets.

Shrink Oversize Pages Shrinks large pages to fit the currently selected paper size but doesn’t enlarge small pages. If an area is selected and is larger than the printable area of the currently selected paper, it’s scaled to fit the printable area. This option is always active during N-up printing. You can set this option as the default using the Default print preset. See Create print presets.

Custom Scale  Resizes the page by the percentage you specify.

Choose Paper Source By PDF Page Size (Windows)  Uses the PDF page size to determine the output tray rather than the page setup option. This option is useful for printing PDFs that contain multiple page sizes on printers that have different-sized output trays.

Print posters and banners

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.

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box.
    In the Print dialog box, click Poster and then specify the tiling options.

Tile Scale  Scales the pages by the amount you specify.

Overlap Determines the amount each tile overlaps adjacent tiles.

Cut Marks Adds guide marks to each page to help you trim the overlap.

Labels Adds the filename and page number on each "tile."

Tile Only Large Pages  Applies tiling to pages that are larger than the selected paper size at the specified scale. These pages are mapped to multiple sheets of paper.

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.

Pages Per Sheet  Prints a predefined number of pages, or a custom number (up to 99), horizontally and vertically. If you select a predefined number from the menu, Acrobat automatically selects the best paper orientation.

Page Order  Defines how the pages are ordered on paper. Horizontal places pages from left to right, top to bottom. Horizontal Reversed places pages from right to left, top to bottom. Vertical places pages top to bottom, left to right. Vertical Reversed places pages top to bottom, right to left. Both reversed options are suitable for Asian-language documents.

Print Page Border  Prints the crop box (the page boundary of PDF pages).

Note: Printing multiple pages per sheet in Acrobat is independent of the N-up printing features of printer drivers. The Acrobat print settings don’t reflect the N-up settings of the printer drivers. Select the multple pages options either in Acrobat or in the printer driver, but not both.

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.

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box.
    In the Print dialog box, click Booklet and then specify the booklet options.

For more information, see Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios.

Print comments

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

Do one of the following:

Summary — In the Comments and Forms area, click Summarize Comments.

Drawing Markups — In the Comments and Forms area, choose Document And Markups.

Comments on the page - Follow these steps:

  1. Open the Preferences dialog box, click Comments category on the left, and select Print Notes And Pop-Ups.
  2. Deselect Hide Comment Pop-ups When Comment List Is Open.
  3. Open the pop-up comments that you want to print.
  4. Adjust their placement on the page so that they don't overlap or spill off the page.
  5. Click the Print tool icon .
  6. In the Comments and Forms area, choose Document And Markups.

Print a portion of a page

You can print a portion of a page in a PDF. Use the Snapshot Tool 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. For Windows: Select the hamburger menu   , then go to Undo, Redo & more > Take a snapshot.

    For macOS: Select Edit > Undo, Redo & more > Take a snapshot.

  2. Draw a rectangle to select a portion of a page.

  3. Select the hamburger menu   and then select print (Windows), or select File > Print (macOS). Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl+P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the print dialog box. 

     

  4. In the Print dialog box, select Selected graphic under Pages to Print

    Click Edit, Take a Snapshot

Print to file

You can create a device-dependent PostScript file of a document. The resulting file contains code for enabling and controlling specific device features, making it less compatible with devices other than the target device. For better results when creating PostScript files, use Save As Other > More Options > PostScript.

  • Press Ctrl + P (Windows) or command + P (macOS) to open the Print dialog box.
    Select the Advanced button, select Print To File, then click OK.

Options in the Print dialog box

Most options in the Acrobat Print dialog box are the same as other applications. However, some options vary depending on the printer and what you've selected to print.

Comments & Forms

The Comments & Forms options control which visible content prints.

Comments and Forms options in Acrobat

Document

Prints the document contents and form fields.

Document And Markups

Prints document contents, form fields, and comments.

Document And Stamps

Prints the document, form fields, and stamps, but no other markups, such as note comments and pencil lines.

Form Fields Only

Prints interactive form fields but doesn’t print document contents.

Summarize Comments

Creates a separate, printable PDF of the comments in a document. This option is unavailable when you print from a web browser or print multiple documents in PDF Portfolios.

Pages to Print

The Pages To Print options specify the pages or range of pages to print.

Print page options in Acrobat

Current Page

Prints the page that is visible in the current view.

Pages

Specifies the range of pages to print. Use a hyphen to separate numbers in a range. Use a comma to separate individual pages or ranges (for example, 6, 10-31, 42). How you specify the numbers depends on the Page Display preference. If Use Logical Page Numbers is selected, you enter numbers that match the numbering on the pages. For example, if the first page of a document is numbered iii, you enter iii to print that page. 

Note:

To print from a specific page to the end of the document, enter the page with a hyphen. For example, “11-” prints page 11 to the last page of the document.

More Options

Displays additional options to control which pages print.

Current View/Selected Graphic

(Click More Options under Pages To Print.) Prints the area currently visible, the selected pages, or the text and graphics copied with the Snapshot tool. The option name changes depending on if you have selected pages or used the Snapshot tool.

Odd Or Even Pages

Choose which pages to print: All Pages In RangeOdd Pages Only, or Even Pages Only. For example, if you set the range to 2, 7–10 and choose Even Pages Only, only pages 2, 8, and 10 print.

Reverse Pages

Prints pages in reverse order. If page ranges are entered, the pages print opposite of the order in which they were entered. For example, if the Pages box shows 3–5, 7–10, selecting Reverse Pages prints pages 10–7, and then 5–3.

Orientation

Auto Portrait/Landscape

Automatically selects the page orientation that best matches the content and paper. For example, a spreadsheet could print horizontally, while a newsletter could print vertically. The Auto-Portait/Landscape option overrides the orientation selected in Page Setup.

Page orientation

Additional resources

For more information on printing, see the forums on printing and prepress.

Normally, when you print a PDF that contains layers, just the content that is visible onscreen is printed. However, the creator of a layered PDF can control what prints, regardless of its visibility onscreen. The PDF creator can require that watermarks print or prevent the printing of confidential information. If the document is designed to print differently from how it currently appears onscreen, a message may appear in the Print dialog box. The Preview image in the Print dialog box always shows the page as it will print.

Note:

To work with layers in Acrobat, convert the source document to PDF using a preset that preserves layers, such as Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5) or later.

View how layers print

  1. Click the Layers icon  in the Navigation panel. If the Layers icon is not visible, do one of the following:

    • Choose View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Layers.
    • Right-click in the left pane, and choose Layers.
    Choose Layers from the left-pane context menu

  2. Choose Apply Print Overrides from the Options menu.

    Note:

    Depending on the visibility settings specified when the PDF was created, Apply Print Overrides may be unavailable in the Options menu.

Change print settings for a layer

  1. Click the Layers icon  in the navigation panel. (If the Layers icon is not visible, choose View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Layers.)

  2. Expand the Layers area, select a layer, and then select Layer Properties from the Options menu .

  3. In the Layer Properties dialog box, choose one of the following from the Print pop-up menu:

    Always Prints

    Forces the layer to print.

    Never Prints

    Forces the layer not to print.

    Prints When Visible

    Matches printed output to onscreen visibility.

    Note:

    In Reader, you can open the Layer Properties dialog box, but you cannot change the settings.

Create print presets

A PDF can contain a set of print presets, a group of document-specific values that is used to set basic print options. By creating a print preset for a document, you can avoid manually setting certain options in the Print dialog box each time you print the document. It’s best to define print settings for a PDF at the time that you create it. However, print presets provide a means to add basic print settings to a PDF at any time.

  1. Choose File > Properties, and click the Advanced tab.

  2. In the Print Dialog Presets section, set options and click OK.

The next time you open the Print dialog box, the values will be set to the print preset values. These settings are also used when you print individual PDFs in a PDF Portfolio.

Note:

To retain a print preset for a PDF, save the PDF after creating the print preset.

Page Scaling

Prepopulates the Page Scaling menu in the Print dialog box with the option you choose:

Default

Uses the application default setting, which is Shrink To Printable Area.

None

Prevents automatic scaling to fit the printable area. Use this setting to preserve the scale in engineering documents or the point size required for legal reasons.

Note:

The Page Scaling menu in the Print dialog box shows additional options, but you cannot prepopulate the dialog box with any of those options. Choose one of those options when you print.

DuplexMode

For best results, the selected printer should support duplex printing if you select a duplex option.

Simplex

Prints on one side of the paper.

Duplex Flip Long Edge

Prints on both sides of the paper; the paper flips along the long edge.

Duplex Flip Short Edge

Prints on both sides of the paper; the paper flips along the short edge.

Paper Source By Page Size

Selects the option by the same name in the Print dialog box. Uses the PDF page size to determine the output tray rather than the page setup option. This option is useful for printing PDFs that contain multiple page sizes on printers that have different-sized output trays.

Print Page Range

Prepopulates the Pages box in the Print Range section of the Print dialog box with the page ranges you enter here. This setting is useful in a workflow where documents include both instruction pages and legal pages. For example, if pages 1–2 represent instructions for filling out a form, you can set up your print job to print only the form.

Number Of Copies

Prepopulates the Copies box in the Print dialog box. Choose a number from 2 to 5, or choose Default to use the application default, which is one copy. This limitation prevents multiple unwanted copies from being printed.

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 TechNote: 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 Page Display Preferences. Then click General on the left, and 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.

What should I do if Acrobat Reader is asking to save a file when a document is printed?

If Adobe Reader is prompting you to save a file when you click Print, then click Advanced in the Print dialog and deselect the Print to File option.

Note:

  • Make sure have selected a physical printer to print to and not Adobe PDFXPS/Send note or any other virtual printer.
  • The Print to File option was available on the Print dialog itself until Acrobat 10.X versions.

What should I do to print comments available on the PDF document?

There are certain annotations (example: pop-up notes) which are available on the PDF document and the annotations do not print by default unless you want them to be printed.

This has been intentionally designed so that such annotations do not hinder the view of the content available behind them.

However, there may be cases when you do want them to be printed. To print the pop-up notes and other annotations:

  1. Go to Edit > Preferences.
  2. Click Commenting.
  3. Enable the option "Print notes and pop-ups."

Acrobat Reader crashes on printing / Acrobat Reader does not Print after clicking Print button

This could happen due to an Adobe Acrobat installation file corruption. In order to resolve this issue, ensure you are using the latest version of Adobe Reader/ Acrobat application.

If you are seeing this issue with the latest version:

  1. Uninstall the Acrobat Reader using the Acrobat cleaner utility.
  2. Re-install Adobe Reader.

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The Creativity Conference

Oct 14–16 Miami Beach and online

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The Creativity Conference

Oct 14–16 Miami Beach and online