Printing

This page collects everything about printing in SumatraPDF: printing from the window, printing from the command line, every -print-settings option and what it’s good for, and recipes for common printing tasks.

If a printout looks wrong (banding, wrong colors, stalls), see Reporting printing bugs first — most such problems come from the printer driver, not SumatraPDF.

How SumatraPDF prints #

SumatraPDF renders each page to an image and sends that image to the printer. This is reliable across document types (PDF, XPS, CBZ, etc.) but means:

the print spool can be large and printing can be slower than text-based printers
print quality follows the printer resolution, not a vector path
screen-only settings (anti-aliasing, color range, background color) do not change the printout

Printing from the window #

Press Ctrl + P (or toolbar / menu) to open the system print dialog. There you pick the printer, number of copies, and page range.

The Advanced options #

The system print dialog has an Advanced tab (a second tab next to General) with SumatraPDF’s own options:

Print range

All selected pages – print the chosen range as-is
Odd pages only / Even pages only – print only odd/even pages of the range (useful for manual two-sided printing)

Page scaling

Shrink pages to printable area (if necessary) – default; only scales down pages that are too big for the paper, leaves smaller pages at original size
Fit pages to printable area – scale every page up or down so it fills the printable area, keeping the aspect ratio
Stretch pages to fill paper (ignore aspect ratio) – fill the paper in both dimensions, not keeping the aspect ratio (the page is distorted to fit)
Use original page sizes – print at 100%, no scaling (best for forms, labels and anything that must print at an exact size)

Other

Center page horizontally on the paper – center a page that is smaller than the paper; otherwise such a page is aligned to the top-left corner. Useful for envelopes or smaller stock fed through a tray that centers the paper
Choose paper source by document page size – let the printer pick the input tray whose paper matches the page size (the same idea as Adobe’s “Choose paper source by PDF page size”)
Print each page at its document page size (mixed sizes) – for documents whose pages have different sizes, set the paper size per page so each page goes to the right paper/tray instead of all pages using the first page’s size

Windows 11: the “Advanced” tab is missing #

On Windows 11 (22H2 and later) Windows replaced the classic print dialog with a new “modern” one that does not show application-provided tabs. As a result SumatraPDF’s Advanced options (and print preview) don’t appear, even though SumatraPDF still asks for them.

You have two options:

Use command-line printing (below) — it doesn’t depend on the dialog and exposes every Advanced option.
Restore the legacy print dialog for your user account. This affects all apps, not just SumatraPDF:

   reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Print\UnifiedPrintDialog" /v PreferLegacyPrintDialog /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Then sign out and back in. To undo, delete that value.

Command-line printing #

Command-line printing never shows a dialog (unless you ask for one) and exposes every option, so it works the same on every Windows version. After printing, SumatraPDF exits; check the process exit code for success/failure.

-print-to-default — print to the system default printer
-print-to "<printer-name>" — print to a named printer, e.g. -print-to "Microsoft Print to PDF"
-print-settings "<list>" — tweak printing without the dialog (see below)
-silent — suppress error message boxes (for unattended/background printing)
-print-dialog — show the print dialog instead of printing silently
-exit-when-done — used with -print-dialog (and -stress-test); exit after the dialog is dismissed and the document printed

Exit codes #

For unattended/silent printing, the process exit code tells you why a print failed:

Exit code	Meaning
`0`	success
`2`	couldn’t open the file (not found or unsupported format)
`3`	the document doesn’t allow printing
`4`	the printer (named, or default) doesn’t exist
`5`	the printer driver / device failed
`6`	printing is disabled by restriction policy

With several files, the code is 0 only if all printed, otherwise the category of the first failure. Anything that goes wrong inside the spooler/driver after the job is submitted (out of paper, printer offline, jam) can’t be reported — SumatraPDF only knows whether the job was handed off.

You can print several files in one command; the settings apply to all of them:

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "HP LaserJet" -print-settings "fit" a.pdf b.pdf c.pdf

`-print-settings` options #

The list is comma-separated, e.g. -print-settings "1-5,odd,fit,monochrome". Order doesn’t matter. Available tokens:

Which pages

Option	Meaning
`5`	a single page
`2-6`	a page range
`10-8`	a reversed range (prints 10, 9, 8)
`last`	the last page
`-1`, `-2`	count from the end (`-1` = last page, `-2` = second-to-last)
`-3--1`	a range using negatives (here, the last 3 pages)
`even` / `odd`	only even / only odd pages of the selected range

Scaling and placement

Option	Meaning
`noscale`	print at 100% (no scaling)
`shrink`	scale down only pages too big for the paper (default)
`fit`	scale every page to fill the printable area, keeping aspect ratio
`stretch`	fill the paper in both dimensions, ignoring aspect ratio
`center`	center the page horizontally on the paper

Orientation

Option	Meaning
`portrait` / `landscape`	rotate the content 90° (this is content rotation, not the paper orientation, which is set by the printer/driver)
`disable-auto-rotation`	don’t auto-rotate a wide page 90° to fit the paper; print it in its original orientation
`rotate=90` / `rotate=180` / `rotate=270`	rotate the printout by extra degrees, to fix a wrong orientation (e.g. `rotate=180` for upside-down output on virtual printers). In the window, use the Rotate printout dropdown on the Advanced print tab

Paper and tray

Option	Meaning
`paper=A4`	standard size: `A2`, `A3`, `A4`, `A5`, `A6`, `letter`, `legal`, `tabloid`, `statement`, or a name the printer reports (e.g. `A3 297 x 420 mm`)
`paper=76mm x 130mm`	a custom paper size
`paper=auto`	set the paper size from each page’s own size (for mixed page sizes)
`paperkind=<num>`	paper size by Windows `DMPAPER_*` id; use when `paper=A3` doesn’t match the driver’s paper name
`bin=<num or name>`	select the input tray (by number or name)
`bin=auto`	let the printer pick the tray whose paper matches the page size

Copies, sides and color

Option	Meaning
`3x`	number of copies (here, 3)
`collate` / `nocollate`	collate copies (`1,2,3 / 1,2,3`) or not (`1,1 / 2,2 / 3,3`)
`simplex`	one-sided
`duplex` / `duplexlong`	two-sided, flip on long edge
`duplexshort`	two-sided, flip on short edge
`color`	force color
`monochrome`	force grayscale/black-and-white

Output (advanced)

Option	Meaning
`output=<file>`	write to a file (for “print to file” style printers)
`docname=<name>`	set the print job name shown in the print queue
`ignore-pdf-print-settings`	ignore the print defaults embedded in the PDF (see below)

If paper=A4 doesn’t take effect, the driver may report the size under a different name. List the exact names your printer accepts and use one of them, or fall back to paperkind=<num>.

Print defaults embedded in a PDF #

A PDF can carry print hints in its ViewerPreferences dictionary. When you print a PDF from the command line, SumatraPDF reads them and uses them as defaults:

ViewerPreferences key	Effect
`PrintScaling`	`/None` prints at original size (no scaling); `/AppDefault` uses SumatraPDF’s default
`NumCopies`	number of copies
`Duplex`	`Simplex`, `DuplexFlipShortEdge` or `DuplexFlipLongEdge`
`PickTrayByPDFSize`	when true, pick the input tray by page size (same as `bin=auto`)

These are defaults only. Anything you pass in -print-settings overrides the PDF’s value — e.g. -print-settings "2x" prints 2 copies even if the PDF asks for 3. To ignore the PDF’s embedded values completely, add ignore-pdf-print-settings:

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to-default -print-settings "ignore-pdf-print-settings" document.pdf

This applies to command-line printing only; when you print from the window, the print dialog’s own values are used.

Print dialog defaults #

You can change some defaults used by the print dialog with the PrinterDefaults advanced setting (in Settings → Advanced Options):

PrinterDefaults [
	PrintScale = none
	Collate = collate
]

PrintScale — default page scaling. Values: shrink (default), fit, stretch, none.
Collate — default for the print dialog’s Collate checkbox. Values: default (leave the printer/driver default), collate, nocollate. You can still change it per print in the dialog. For command-line printing, use the collate / nocollate -print-settings tokens instead.

Recipes for common tasks #

Print a PDF to the default printer, unattended

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to-default -silent document.pdf

Print at exact size (no scaling) — forms, labels, pre-printed stationery

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Label Printer" -print-settings "noscale" label.pdf

Print a small page centered on larger paper (e.g. an envelope)

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "HP LaserJet" -print-settings "noscale,center" envelope.pdf

Fit every page to the paper, in grayscale, 2 copies

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Office Printer" -print-settings "fit,monochrome,2x" report.pdf

Two-sided, long-edge binding, fit to page

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Office Printer" -print-settings "fit,duplexlong" report.pdf

Manual two-sided on a one-sided printer (print odd pages, flip the stack, then print even pages)

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Office Printer" -print-settings "odd,fit" report.pdf
SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Office Printer" -print-settings "even,fit" report.pdf

Print only the last 3 pages

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to-default -print-settings "-3--1" document.pdf

Print a specific paper size from a specific tray

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Office Printer" -print-settings "paper=A5,bin=2,fit" booklet.pdf

Print a document with mixed page sizes to matching paper/trays

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Multi-tray Printer" -print-settings "paper=auto,bin=auto" mixed.pdf

Print a wide (landscape) page in its original orientation (no 90° rotation)

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Receipt Printer" -print-settings "disable-auto-rotation" wide.pdf

Fix an upside-down printout (e.g. when printing to XPS / Print to PDF)

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Microsoft Print to PDF" -print-settings "rotate=180" doc.pdf

“Print” to a PDF file

SumatraPDF.exe -print-to "Microsoft Print to PDF" -print-settings "output=C:\out\result.pdf" input.pdf