Participating Frequently

Question

Can't print true to scale despite scale to fit being deactivated and size set to 100%

Forum|Forum|25 days ago
June 10, 2026
2 replies
79 views

I have been fighting trying to print large files true to scale for a month now and I’m at my wits’ end. I have set the printer and Photoshop options to print at 100% and scale to fit is not activated. You can see these settings here:

All looks right. In a perfect world, this would indicate that the file gets printed at the size it’s made (in this case, 14.25” wide by 13.75” tall), spanning across as many pages as necessary (in this case, four - that’s how it always printed with Paint until Microsoft released an update that royally broke it).

Instead, this is what I get:

That entire large file gets confined to ONE piece of paper. Can someone explain what in the name of all that is hot pink is going on??? Why is it so difficult to print something true to scale? I’ve put the exact same file in Acrobat, thinking the splicing feature would help… no, in that case, the opposite happens - 100% means print 4 pages across 16, meaning everything is massive and once again not true to scale.

PLEASE HELP!!!

jane-e

Community Expert

@TenderWolf1987 wrote: “I’ve put the exact same file in Acrobat, thinking the splicing feature would help”

Acrobat, InDesign, and Illustrator all have a tiling feature in their print dialogs. Photoshop does not.

See this page for the tile settings to use in Acrobat:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/desktop/print-documents/booklets-posters-banners/posters-banners.html

Their screenshot shows an overlap of zero, but a setting of about 3p0 (.5”) is better.

Jane

T

TenderWolf1987Author

Participating Frequently

I wish Photoshop had such a feature. It’s the original photo editing software, isn’t it? It’s disappointing that I have to spend more money monthly just for desired printing capabilities. Anyway, I did get Acrobat to print correctly. My next question is, is it possible to center each individual piece of the file on each page? Rather than the top left going to the far right and bottom of the page and leaving a large gap along the top and left, can I get it centered on the piece of paper? Same with all of them. Even with the .5” overlay, it’s not leaving me enough space to allow for errors when it comes to gluing the pages together. It’s set to 0.005, and maybe that’s wrong, but I changed it to .5 and it scaled from 100% to 103% in the preview, which puts me back to the issue I was having to begin with. Plus, the preview shows the same - the images aren’t actually centered on the pages, so I’d have the same issue once more. I hope that makes sense lol

jane-e

Community Expert

@TenderWolf1987 wrote: “is it possible to center each individual piece of the file on each page?”

Do you mean in Acrobat or in Photoshop?

Also, do you mean when you choose File > Print?

If I had to tile in Photoshop, I would create a series of guides, keeping in mind the .5” overlap. Then I would

make a selection for the first tile
Ctrl+J to put it on its own layer
repeat for each “tile”
check and double check every layer
File > Export > Layers to Files

Jane

davescm

Community Expert

The screens you show are the Epson printer driver. That driver is expecting to make a single page print from the page sent from Photoshop. If you turn off (uncheck) Reduce/Enlarge you should get a full page print (albeit with borders) of the centre area of your document (You will get a warning of clipping before you print.

To print across multiple sheets you have two choices :
1. Make a selection of the area to print and print each sheet separately. Ensure reduce /enlarge is unchecked and do not check ‘borderless’ Repeat this for each section to be printed.
or
2. Enable Multi-Page in the Epson driver and set it to poster. However that is likely to introduce further scaling.

Dave

T

TenderWolf1987Author

Participating Frequently

I’ve done all that but it still doesn’t print correctly. I’ve had to download the free trial of Acrobat and that seems to work… it’s unfortunate that I now have to pay an extra $20 a month just to print, though. It makes no sense to me that Acrobat, InDesign, and Illustrator have such capabilities but Photoshop, the original photo editing software, doesn’t. :(

jane-e

Community Expert

@TenderWolf1987

I’m not in my office right now and can’t check, but try the free Acrobat Reader to see if it works for you.

Also, remember to cancel the Acrobat trial within the 7 days, or it rolls into an annual subscription.

If you start a Feature Request to include tiling in Photoshop, I’ll be the first to upvote it!

Jane

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