How to Print Coloring Pages

There are different methods for printing coloring pages, depending on the website that you link to or visit. Some coloring page websites use technology such as Macromedia’s Flashpaper or Adobe’s Acrobat (.pdf) to automatically scale the picture to the size to take up the majority of the page while websites save the coloring page as a graphic image. Websites use technology to size a picture, all you normally have to do is click on the coloring page and print. For websites storing graphic images in a .gif, .jpeg or .png format may or may not automatically print utilizing the full sheet of paper. Of course, when printing coloring pages no one wants a lot of white space around the outside edges or a picture taking up only 1/3 of the page. So what do you do? There are a couple of options however ‘Option 1’ is the best method to use since it doesn’t require opening additional programs. If for some reason ‘Option 1’ does not work for a particular coloring page, one of the other two can be used.

Option 1: Print Preview and Scale

  1. From the Internet browser toolbar, select ‘File’ and then ‘Print Preview’.
  2. From the ‘Shrink to Fit’ dropdown, select a predefined % until the picture takes up the majority of the sheet. If one % is to small and the next increment is too large, select ‘Custom’ and key in a percentage between the two numbers. Adjust the percentage until the majority of the surrounding white space is minimized.
  3. If necessary you can also adjust the orientation from ‘Portrait’ to ‘Landscape’.
  4. Click on the ‘Print’ button and then ‘Ok’.

Option 2: Cut and Paste

  1. Place the mouse over the picture.
  2. Right mouse click and select ‘Copy Image’.
  3. Open up a new document in your word processing program.
  4. In your word process program, ‘Paste’ the image into the document.
  5. Adjust the orientation of the paper (portrait or landscape) and size the image to take up as much of the sheet as possible.
  6. Print the document as you normally would in your word processing program.

Option 3: Save Method

  1. Place the mouse over the picture.
  2. Right mouse click and select ‘Save Image As’.
  3. The ‘Save Image’ screen opens up. Save the picture to a location on your computer, taking note of the file name.
  4. Open a graphics program and then the picture you just saved.
  5. Print as you normally would from the graphics program.

Leave a Reply