How to Print a Calendar at Home (Perfect Results Every Time)

Published August 8, 2026 · 123Calendar Team

Printing a calendar sounds like it should take one click, and usually it does. But almost everyone hits at least one of the same four problems: the grid is cut off at the edge, the colours vanish, the whole thing prints too small to write on, or a stray second page appears with nothing but a footer on it. All four have quick fixes.

Start with orientation

Choose landscape for any monthly calendar. A month is seven columns wide, and portrait orientation squeezes those columns to roughly an inch each — enough for the date number and almost nothing else. Landscape gives each day box about 50% more width, which is the difference between a calendar you can write on and one you can only look at.

Portrait works better for weekly planners and list-style layouts, where each row runs the full width of the page instead of competing with six neighbours.

Turn on background graphics

This is the single most common printing complaint, and it is a browser setting rather than a website problem. By default most browsers strip background colours to save ink, which removes the coloured weekday header, the weekend shading and the holiday highlights.

• Chrome and Edge: in the print dialog open "More settings" and tick Background graphics.
• Firefox: open "More settings" and tick Print backgrounds.
• Safari: expand the dialog with "Show Details" and tick Print backgrounds.

If you would rather save ink, leave it off — our calendars are designed to stay perfectly readable in plain black and white.

Fix cut-off edges and shrunken grids

If the right-hand column is clipped, the scale is too high or the margins are too wide. In the print dialog set Scale to "Fit to page width" (or 100% if the preview already fits) and set margins to Default or Minimum. Minimum margins give you the largest possible day boxes, which matters if several people will be writing on the same sheet.

If the calendar prints tiny in the middle of the page, the opposite has happened — a custom scale below 100% is still selected from a previous job. Reset it to fit-to-page.

Get rid of the extra blank page

A second page containing only a header or footer usually means the browser is adding its own headers and footers. Untick Headers and footers in the print dialog. Our pages already hide navigation, adverts and page furniture when printing, so what you see in the preview is the entire calendar.

Choose the right paper

Standard US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) is the default for American printers and is what our layouts are designed around; A4 works equally well with fit-to-page scaling. If the calendar is going on a wall and will be written on daily, heavier paper — 24 lb / 90 gsm or above — stops ink bleeding through and survives being handled all month. Matte finish takes pen and pencil far better than glossy photo paper.

Print with your plans already on it

The advantage of an editable calendar is that you do not have to print an empty grid and fill it in afterwards. Click into any day box, type appointments, shifts, birthdays or deadlines, and print the finished version. Your notes are saved in your browser automatically, so you can build the month up over several sittings and print it once at the end.

Saving as a PDF instead

Every print dialog can also produce a file. Choose Save as PDF (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) or PDF › Save as PDF (Safari) as the destination rather than a printer, and you get a document you can email, store or print later at a copy shop. Our calendar pages also have a dedicated PDF button that produces a clean single-page document directly.

A quick checklist

1. Landscape orientation for monthly calendars.
2. Background graphics on (unless saving ink deliberately).
3. Scale set to fit page width; margins default or minimum.
4. Browser headers and footers turned off.
5. US Letter or A4, matte, 24 lb or heavier for wall use.

Set those five things once and every calendar you print afterwards comes out right the first time.

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