Try Something Different for Printing Coloring Pages
Print It Your Way
Some of the coloring pages I’ve created and seen are quite intricate. One of the advantages of buying coloring pages as digital downloads instead of in book form is that you have total control over the paper you print on. But not only that–you can also get creative with the print size and layout.
Just like you don’t have to stay in the lines or use any set color scheme while coloring, you don’t need to print your pages the standard way either! By adjusting the print size, you can tailor the printout to your favorite media or preferences. The repeating mandala designs like the OrnaMENTALs designs you find here are especially suited to changing up the print layout.
Adjust Print Size for Different Media or Preferences
For instance, if a coloring page is very intricate, but you only have thick markers or crayons to work with, it might be difficult to color in the smaller areas of the page if you print it as it was designed. But you can blow it up to 200% and only print a section of the design to color, giving you much larger spaces to color in. Similarly, if you want to remove some of the repetitive areas in a mandala style coloring page, you do not have to print the whole thing. And if you only like the center portion or the edge portion of a design, you only need to print the areas you like!
The PDF software I personally like and use is called PDF XChange Viewer (free version) and it gives you a lot of options for scaling your coloring pages before you decide to print them. In addition, it allows you to export the PDF page as an image file which you can crop and/or further manipulate to print exactly the area of a design you want to color.
So don’t limit yourself to just printing a design centered on the page if you don’t want to… have some fun and do it your way. Because expressing individuality is why you enjoy coloring in the first place, isn’t it?
PDF Printing Options
Here are some screen shots of various layout options you can choose when printing a coloring page in the free PDF XChange Viewer software. Chances are, other PDF viewing software will have similar options, so get in there and play around with it!
Printing Options for Coloring Pages – Standard Print
This (above) is the standard way of printing a coloring page. The settings are “fit to printer margins,” auto-center on the paper, and no scaling.
Printing Options for Coloring Pages – 200% Scaled Print
In this next example, a custom scale of 200% is set with auto-rotate and auto-center unselected. The top left quadrant of the design is printed to fill the page. I’d recommend using a ruler and fine point pen to add a line along the right and bottom edges to close off the open lines.
Printing Options for Coloring Pages – 150% Scaled Print
Here we have set a custom scale of 150% but left auto-rotate and auto-center selected, so you get a larger design to color, but you lose the outermost edges of the design. Here again you might wish to add your own border lines with a ruler and fine point pen.
Printing Options for Coloring Pages – Cropped Print
In this last example, I’ve used PDF XChange Viewer’s “print current view” option to give more control over how the design is cropped. Some PDF software may have a crop option, but for this software it is not in the free version. But this is a workaround to allow you to crop a design just for printing. By selecting auto-rotate and auto-center, we get the design to fit the width of a standard sheet of paper in landscape orientation, resulting in larger spaces to color. One again, you can use a ruler to add your own bottom border to the printed page.
Print It Your Way!
I hope this gives you some new ideas on how to make intricate or repetitive coloring page designs more enjoyable to color. Let me know what you think in the comments. Or if there is a PDF printing software that has similar options, let us know about it!
Ellen says
Can you teach me how to print color pages from Pentrest? Thanks
Jenny says
Ellen, images in Pinterst usually are copy righted. printing without artist consent, it will be call “stealing”. unless it’s post by artist themselves and artist or book publisher states’ it’s free dowload.. it’s not right to just print them out.