EPUB to PDF for printing
Printing an ebook goes wrong in three predictable places: the paper size, the margins, and one checkbox in the print dialog. All three are fixable before you waste a ream.
Read in this tab. Never uploaded. Here's why that's true.
Some characters won't survive this.
This is a fixed-layout EPUB.
Every page is already a picture, usually a comic or a children's book. You'll get those pictures, one per page, and the text options below won't change anything.
More options contents page, bookmarks, page numbers
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This runs on your machine, so the speed is down to your machine. Keep the tab open.
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Before you print a hundred pages
- Look at page one first. Open it and check the type size and the margins on screen. Wrong choices are cheap to fix here and expensive to fix at the printer.
- Print two pages, not two hundred. Paper is whiter and type is smaller than a screen suggests. 11pt looks fine on a monitor and reads small on A4.
- Set your printer to actual size. "Fit to page" shrinks everything by a few per cent and undoes the margins you just chose.
Reading it on a tablet or phone
Copy it across however you normally would. If the type looks small, convert again at a smaller page size rather than a larger point size — the page shrinks with it, so the text fills more of the screen.
Something went wrong
- A4 · Letter
- both, correctly sized
- 3
- margin widths
- 0
- bytes uploaded
Set these three things and the rest looks after itself
Page size. A4 or US Letter, matching the paper in the tray. Not "whatever the default was": a PDF built for Letter and printed on A4 loses 8mm off the width and gains 18mm of white at the foot, and every page will look subtly wrong without it being obvious why.
Margins. Normal for reading, Wide for binding, Narrow for saving paper. If the pages are going into a ring binder, comb or coil, use Wide: the punched edge takes about 15mm and Normal margins put your text right against the holes.
Type size. 11pt is a book. 10pt is a dense book. 12pt is a comfortable one and costs about 10% more pages. 14pt is genuinely large print. Print two pages at your chosen size before committing. Paper is whiter and less forgiving than a screen, and almost everyone guesses one size too small on a monitor.
The checkbox that ruins it
Every print dialog has a scaling control, and it usually defaults to something like Fit to printable area. Printers cannot print to the very edge of a sheet, so this shrinks the whole page by a few per cent to fit inside their unprintable border. The result is a page whose margins are all slightly bigger than you asked for and whose type is slightly smaller. Because it is uniform, it reads as "this PDF is a bit off" rather than as a printer setting.
Set it to Actual size, or 100%, or None, depending on which dialog you are looking at. The margins here are already generous enough to clear any printer's border.
Before the long print run
- Open the PDF and look at page one on screen. Wrong type size is obvious immediately.
- Check the contents page. The numbers are real, so if they look wrong, something is wrong.
- Print pages 3 and 4. Two sheets tells you almost everything two hundred would.
- Then print the rest.
Things worth turning off
The cover, if you are printing on a mono laser. A full-page cover image is a lot of toner for a grey rectangle.
Images, if the book is illustrated and you only want the text. This also makes the PDF dramatically smaller.
Justification, if the spacing looks loose. We do not hyphenate, so a narrow column occasionally has to open up its spaces to reach the right margin. Ragged-right is the better-looking answer at small page sizes.
Questions
A4 or Letter?
Whichever your printer has paper for. A4 is 8mm narrower and 18mm taller than US Letter, which is enough that a PDF made for one prints with wrong margins on the other. If you are in the US or Canada, pick Letter; almost everywhere else, A4.
Which margin setting should I use?
Normal, unless you are binding it. Narrow fits noticeably more on a page and is the right choice if you are printing a long book and care about the paper. Wide leaves room to write in, and is what to use if the pages are going into a ring binder or a comb binding, because the punched edge eats about 15mm.
Why does my print come out with tiny margins?
Almost always because the print dialog is set to "Fit to page" or "Shrink oversized pages". That rescales the whole page by a few per cent to fit inside the printer's own unprintable border, which undoes the margins you chose and makes the type smaller than you asked for. Set it to "Actual size" or 100%.
Can I print it double-sided?
Yes, and your printer driver handles it; there is nothing to set here. One thing worth knowing: we do not insert blank pages to force chapters onto right-hand pages, so on a duplex print a chapter will start on whichever side it falls. That is a deliberate choice in favour of using less paper.
What type size should I print at?
Start at 11pt and print two pages before you print two hundred. Type looks larger on a backlit screen than it does on paper, and 11pt on A4 is a comfortable book size that people frequently talk themselves out of after seeing it on a monitor. If you are printing for someone who finds small type hard, 14pt is a genuine large-print edition.