Help! My Printer Won't Print the Right Size!
Printing Planner Inserts
Purchasing downloadable pdf planner files and printing at home is an easy way to save money, and a great way to get a fully customized daily organizer. I'm partial to our planners, naturally, but these ideas will likely work with any pdf planners.
Find the Right Size Planner
When you buy a Confetti Saturday printable planner, you have a few options of sizes available. We typically offer all planners in a Letter, A4, A5, and Mini Binder size. Open the size desired in Adobe Acrobat.
In the top menu, go to File, then Print.
Mac vs. PC
The next few steps may look different depending on if you are using a Mac or PC, and depending on the printer that you have installed. You should be able to adapt the tips to your specific printer. If you need extra help, email us and we will be happy to assist.
Duplex Printing
If your printer prints Duplex, use it. It will make the process much faster.
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Under Pages to Print, select All.
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Under Paper Size and Handling, select Actual Size. This is the most important, and the option most often neglected that causes middle of the night frantic emails to be sent to us.
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When you select Fit, the program will contort the image to the size of the paper. So, even if you opened the A5 sized file, your printer will stretch the image to fit within the 8.5" x 11" paper.
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Under Orientation, choose Auto Portrait/Landscape. This will keep the pages centered for easier cropping later.
Printing Without Duplex
If your printer can't quite handle duplex functions, or if you just enjoy a challenge, you can still easily print the pages double-sided at home.
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Orientation and Page size will be the same as above (Auto and Actual Size).
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Under Pages to Print, More Options, select Odd Pages Only. Print out the entire planner starting with page 1.
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Now, put the stack of paper back in the printer without re-arranging, taking care to place the papers face down or face up (depending on your specific printer guidelines, so that the blank side will be printed on.
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Go to File, then Print again.
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This time, select Even Pages Only under Pages to Print, and check the box next to Reverse.
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This will print beginning on the last even page of the planner, which is awesome because when you loaded your paper in the printer, you left the last odd page on top.
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Pull the paper from the printer, and manually arrange them to be in the correct order for your planner. Punch holes in the sides if desired, and you are done.
Testing
Until you become a comfortable pro at the Odd Page / Reverse / Even Page routine, I recommend printing a few test pages to experiment with. That way, you can become comfortable positioning the paper so that the top is in the right place (you want to be sure that you are printing so that the top of Page 1, when flipped, becomes the top of page two. I too have been guilting of rushing the process and loading the paper so that it printed head to toe. Also, it is really really frustrating to print a 100 page document only to discover that it wasn't exactly right. Save yourself the heartache. For test prints, you can change the Pages in the Pages to Print section to 1-4. This will give you some experience with the technique without wasting paper on failed attempts.