Guide
How to turn off Fit to page permanently
It keeps coming back because scaling is not one setting. Three layers can apply it — the document, the application, and the printer driver — and each remembers its own default. Fix the wrong layer and it returns on the next job.
The short answer
Set it in the printer driver. That is the lowest layer, it applies to every application, and nothing above it can quietly undo it. Application settings are worth setting as well — but on their own they are the reason the problem feels like it keeps returning.
Where the setting lives, app by app
Adobe Acrobat / Reader
setting persistsFile → Print → Page Sizing & Handling → Actual size. Acrobat remembers this per user from one session to the next, so setting it once is usually enough.
A document that arrives with its own print presets embedded can override your choice. If Acrobat keeps reverting on one specific PDF but not others, that is why.
Google Chrome
resets every jobCtrl/Cmd+P → More settings → Scale → Default, or Custom and type 100.
Chrome resets Scale to Default on every new print job, and Default is not always 100%: for a PDF whose page exceeds the printable area, Chrome silently applies Fit to printable area instead. There is no preference that changes this. For anything measured, print from Acrobat rather than the browser.
Microsoft Edge
resets every jobCtrl+P → More settings → Scale → Actual size.
Edge shares Chrome’s print pipeline and the same behaviour: the choice is per job, not remembered, and “Fit to printable area” is the default for oversized pages.
Mozilla Firefox
setting persistsCtrl/Cmd+P → Scale → untick “Fit to page width”, then select 100%.
Firefox does remember the last value — which cuts both ways. If someone once set 80% for a long document, every later print inherits it silently. Worth checking rather than assuming.
Microsoft Word
setting persistsFile → Print → the zoom dropdown at the bottom → Scale to paper size → No Scaling. Also confirm the document’s own page size under Layout → Size matches the paper in the tray.
Word’s most common scaling problem is not this setting but a mismatch: a document set up as Letter printed onto A4 gets rescaled to fit whatever the driver does. Fix the page size and the scaling question often disappears.
macOS (Preview and system dialog)
setting persistsCmd+P → Scale → 100%, and untick “Scale to Fit”. Then save the whole configuration: Presets → Save Current Settings as Preset, and set that preset as the default.
The macOS preset is the most reliable fix on any platform, because it captures paper size, scaling and printer options together. Create one called “Actual size” and it survives restarts and app changes.
Windows printer driver
setting persistsSettings → Bluetooth & devices → Printers & scanners → your printer → Printing preferences. Look for Page Setup, Layout or Paper Handling and set page scaling to Off, None or Original size. This becomes the default for every application.
This is the layer people miss. If prints come out small no matter what the application says, the driver is applying its own scaling underneath — and no setting in Acrobat or Chrome can override it.
Why three layers exist
A document declares a page size. An application decides how to place that page on the sheet. A driver decides what the hardware actually does with it. Each layer was designed to solve a real problem independently of the others, and each therefore keeps its own state — which is coherent from an engineering standpoint and maddening from a user one.
The practical consequence is that troubleshooting has an order. Start at the driver, because it overrides everything above it. Then the application. Then the document’s own page size, which is the quiet culprit whenever a Letter-sized file is printed on A4 or the reverse — no scaling setting can make a mismatched page fit without changing its size.
Verify it once
A setting that says 100% and a print that measures 100% are different claims. The calibration test settles it in one page: print it, measure the 100 mm square, and if it reads 100 mm you have genuinely switched scaling off everywhere. Worth repeating after driver updates, which routinely reset printing preferences.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Fit to page keep turning itself back on?
Because there is no single setting. Scaling can be applied at three independent layers — the document, the application’s print dialog, and the printer driver — and each stores its own default. Chrome and Edge additionally reset their scale on every job by design, so nothing you choose there persists. When a fix “doesn’t stick” it is usually because it was applied at a layer above the one actually doing the scaling.
What is the most reliable way to make 100% permanent?
Set it in the printer driver, because that is the lowest layer and applies to every application. On Windows that is Printing preferences for the specific printer; on macOS it is a saved print preset set as the default. Application settings sit above the driver and are worth setting too, but the driver is the one that holds.
I set Actual size but the print is still slightly small. What now?
Something below your setting is still scaling. Check three things in order: the printer driver’s own scaling option, whether borderless mode is on (many drivers implement it by enlarging the page 1–3%), and whether the paper size in the document matches the paper in the tray. If all three are clean and the print is still off, you are looking at genuine hardware drift — measure it and apply a corrective percentage.
Can I stop Chrome from shrinking PDFs?
Not permanently. Chrome resets Scale on every print job and applies Fit to printable area to any PDF whose page exceeds what the printer can reach, with no preference to change it. You can set Scale to 100 for each individual job, but for anything dimension-critical the practical answer is to open the file in Acrobat Reader, which both offers a true Actual size and remembers it.
Does this affect image files as well as PDFs?
Yes, and often worse. Windows Photos, Paint and the macOS image tools apply their own fitting logic — “Fit picture to frame” in Windows Photos both crops and rescales. If a file has to print at an exact size, export it as a PDF at the correct page size first and print that. A PDF carries an explicit page size that print dialogs respect; an image carries only pixels and an easily ignored DPI tag.
How do I confirm it actually worked?
Measure a printed reference rather than trusting the dialog. Our calibration sheet prints a 100 mm square with two independent line references; if the square measures 100 mm, scaling is genuinely off at every layer. This is worth doing once per printer and again after any driver update, because driver updates commonly reset preferences.