Printing can sometimes feel more complicated than expected — especially when different printers, paper types, PDF viewers, and device settings all interact differently with one another.
At Visually Speaking, we recognize that every home, classroom, workplace, and learning environment is different. Our tools are designed with flexibility in mind, including options for color, black-and-white printing, and resources that may be printed single-sided or double-sided depending on your preferences and setup.
Throughout this article, we’ll unpack a few common printing terms, types of printers, double-sided printing options, and settings you may come across when printing visual tools at home, at school, or through a workplace or community printer.
Common Types of Printers
Inkjet Printers
- Common in homes
- Use liquid ink
- Often good for color printing
- May print more slowly on high-quality settings
Laser Printers
- Common in schools and workplaces
- Use toner instead of liquid ink
- Often print quickly and sharply
- Many black-and-white copiers are laser printers
Words You May See When Printing
Ink: Liquid color used in many home printers.
Toner: A fine powder used in many laser printers and workplace copiers.
Duplex Printing: Printing on both sides of a page.
Single-Sided Printing: Printing on one side of a page only.
Manual Double-Sided Printing: A type of double-sided printing where pages are flipped and placed back into the printer by hand so the reverse side can be printed.
Collate: Keeps pages in order when printing multiple copies.
Actual Size: Prints the page at its intended size.
Fit to Page: Adjusts the page slightly to fit within printer margins.
Portrait: A vertical page orientation.
Landscape: A horizontal page orientation.
PDF Viewer: The app used to open a file before printing, such as Adobe Acrobat, Preview, or a web browser.
Printing Settings and Options
Printing settings may look slightly different depending on the device, app, or printer being used. Some settings may appear directly in a PDF viewer, while others may appear in your printer’s own settings window.
Color Or Black-And-White Printing: Allows pages to print using full color or grayscale only.
Actual Size: Prints pages at their intended size without shrinking or enlarging.
Fit To Page: Adjusts pages slightly to fit within printable margins.
Double-Sided Printing: Prints on both sides of the page.
Print Quality: May include settings such as Draft, Standard, or Best quality.
Paper Type: Allows printers to adjust for regular paper, cardstock, photo paper, or specialty papers.
Page Orientation: Controls whether pages print in portrait or landscape format.
Sometimes printing settings appear in more than one place. There may be settings inside the app being used to print, along with settings inside the printer window itself.
Some printers pull pages back into the printer on their own, while others need the pages to be placed back in manually.
If something does not print the way you expected, it can help to check both places to make sure the settings are working together.