How to print a PDF on Windows correctly

1 min read·25 July 2026

Printing a PDF on Windows usually just works — but sometimes things go wrong: incorrect scaling, pages not printing, or a printer that gets stuck. Here are the most common problems and solutions.

The basics: print via Edge

Open the PDF in Microsoft Edge (the default PDF viewer in Windows 10/11). Press Ctrl+P. Select your printer, choose A4 and "Actual size" as the scaling. Click Print.

Scaling and clipping

If the PDF prints with large white margins or text gets cut off, check the scaling setting. Choose "Fit to page" to scale the content to the sheet, or "Actual size" to avoid scaling.

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PDF prints as blank pages

This is a known issue with PDFs that have transparency layers or special effects. Solution: print as image (Adobe Acrobat: Advanced > Print as image). Or compress via PDFrust first — that flattens transparency layers.

Printer freezes on large PDF

Large PDFs with many images can overwhelm a printer. Compress the PDF first via PDFrust to reduce the file size. Then try printing again.