UPDATE: See my new video from March 2021!
Let’s say you’ve got a ginormous image that you’d like to print. Maybe it’s a picture of a map, and the resolution of the image is something like 2000 by 2200 pixels.
Obviously, you could just print the image to a single sheet of A4/Letter paper, but you’d lose a lot of detail.
If you’re a serious Photoshopper, you’d probably just fire up that particular app and use the built-in functionality to split and print.
For the rest of us, however, that’s not exactly what we’d call “easy”.
The good news is that Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 all give you a wonderful (AHEM!) application that does exactly what you need…
You’re going to find this hard to believe, but that built-in Windows app that will split-print an image for you is none other than Microsoft’s much-maligned Paint application!!
I know – whodduh thunkit?
Although I have to say that Paint in Windows 7 is definitely better than the previous version, at least in terms of looks…
In any case, here’s what you do:
- Open the image you’d like to print in Paint
- Select: Print -> Page Setup (Vista and 7), or File -> Page Setup (in XP)
- Under Scaling, select Fit to and change the setting to something like “2 by 2 page(s)”
- Click OK
- Print the image from Paint, and make sure to select “All Pages”
That’s it – you’re done. You can take any image and have Paint print it out on multiple sheets of paper. If you’d like, you can also adjust the page margins in the Page Setup. In any case, all that’s left is to trim the white border from the individual printed pages, break out the scotch tape, and go to town.
Before you know it, you’ll have your huge image printed and assembled on regular-sized paper.
What’s really strange about this little feature is that I know a lot of people who would love to know about it. But 10 out of 10 people I asked had no idea that Paint could do this. Most people I talk to also have no idea that even in Windows XP, you can select a bunch of images, right click, and choose Send to -> Mail Recipient. That will present a little box that lets you automatically resize the images to a smaller resolution before opening your default e-mail client and attaching the resized images to a new message. And yet every Mac user knows their system can do that…
But then, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. When has Microsoft ever successfully advertised the truly useful features in their operating systems?
I tried this….
I took a image and scaled it to a 2 page by 2 page size (4 pages total) and it shows up in print preview as being split over 4 pages but when I print it prints only the first two pages twice instead of all seperate images
No matter what I do it will only print the first two pages
Anyone have any ideas?
Awesome!
I tried to print a poster sized picture, and it looked really good!
A few taping and cutting will finish this one.
two thumbs up!
=)
thanks alot dear i really have no idea that paint could do this. I have been using windows since 13 years.
Works like a champ! Huda thunk Microsoft would do something that nice. Excellent investigation on your part, too. Thanks very much! — ZS
will def give this a shot!!!
thanks
Hey,
Thanks a lot got the great thing form paint, was not using it for long time and going for other programs just for it. 🙂
very thanks…
I’VE BEEN WASTING 3 HOURS TRYING TO SPLIT THE PICTURE AND LIKE, 13 PAGES PRINTED THAT FAILED WHAT A WASTE, Im one of those people who didnt know paint can do this, thank you very much 🙂
this was awesome!thanks alot for this key info..now finally big prints
thanks so much for this info!!!
This was so helpful !! Thanks so much !!
Thanks!
Thanks! it was informative
Thank you sir, worked like a charm (MS Paint Win XP)
Hi im trying to do this but how do you print it completely borderless?
I think that would depend on setting up your printer properly, but I’ve never tried it before!
THANK YOU!
Thank you very much!! I really needed this 🙂
I dont have the option “2×2 pages”, just A4, A3, letter etc, what to do?
Just made my day! Thank you…worked great
Awesome!!Thanks.
Awesome !!! TOO GOOD !!! Thanks a lot !!!!
Fantastic, You are a star. So simple so effective.
Awesome!Was looking for it everywhere and stupefied by the too technical jargon, and viola, your simple but important tip, wow, marvelous.Thanks a bunch!
Brilliant!
That’s very helpful, thank you!
Thanks, it works perfect under XP!
Thank you! After 9 years of Gimp, I finally found the only useful feature of M$ Paint 😀
Amazing … it works! You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to fix this! How comes you explain it in four lines and other people write whole paragraphs of technical mumbo jumbo?!
Is there a quick way to do the same with PDFs?
Well, I don’t know about older versions, but in Adobe Reader X (specifically version 10.1.2), you can click the Print button. Then, under the Page Size & Handling section, there is a button labeled Poster. Click that button, and it looks like it will do exactly what you need. I’ve never used it myself, and I don’t think it used to be there in older versions of Adobe’s PDF reader, but there you have it!
Thanks 🙂
Thanks! I have been trying to accomplish printing over multiple pages for months now. It was so easy to do! 🙂
Ace tip! thank you so much 🙂 x
Awesome tip! Thank you!
I know what i say is not for printing one image…
I have a problem on Windows 7… when trying to print more than one image at once.
Let me explain:
-I select the files i want to print
-I use Preview to open Windows Preview
-It let me see one image, then the next… so on for all i have selected
-I hit Ctrl+P or select on top menu Print
Hey! It only prints one image, the one that is been shown… no way to tell it to print all.
The other trick: Select on Explorer all i want and on context menu select Print… does not work just because no print wizard opens… it open each one on Microsoft Pthoeditor and print each one.
That makes one Print Job per image, with just only one image per page and just one page per print job… and i need one print job with more than one page, as many pages as images, etc…
No way to do it!!!
In WindowsXP it was very easy using same way… you go to a folder, select just one image, open preview, tell it to print and a wizard bring up where you can select all images you want to be printed on just one print job.
In Windows 7 wiht the same steps, ony can print one image… i need to press Ctrl+P as many times as images i want to get printed… and so i get more than one print Job, as many as Ctrl+P pressed. Worst if i want too different images on same page it only prints the first one, and the space for the other is left blank!!!
Need help!!!
how can i search for this on the forum? what keywords must i use?
Thanks!!!
Select multiple images, and then click Print instead of Preview.
In the dialog box that pops up, underneath the image it will have arrow buttons next to “1 of 4 pages”, for example. Print, and it will send each image on a different page.
That works for me, anyway!
The other option is to download Windows Live Essentials and use the Photo Gallery app (which is awesome for organizing photos). This app also lets you print multiple photos. You can download it here.
How can I place photos on top of an image in paint to print? When I try to place a photo on top of image, the image disappears.
Dear helper, thank you so much for your educational painless instructions. You are amazing bro. I wish you the best.
Thank you so much for the quick and easy way to print posters! I was able to print three posters for my booth this weekend in just a few minutes and for pennies! This is something that I will be using again and again, thanks! I will also be sharing this information with others.
Just wanted to echo what everyone else has written here and say thanks! My designer sent me an infographic that was 4,000 pixels high, printing it on letter paper made it unreadable. I thought about spliting it up in photoshop but that’s too much work.
I can’t believe humble MS Paint saved the day! I’ve not opened it in years.
Just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU. Even did not realise I had Paint and so happy to discover other very useful functions.
Cheers for the help!!
It works, thanks!
You saved my life! I love you now!
I tried it but it didn’t work. I can scale it up and set it fit to 3 pages but it still prints a small pic on just one page…
Yah, and I learn this AFTER I’ve spent two hours looking for a website that’ll expand my picture onto several sheets of paper. Just great.
Really helpful, though, if only I had seen it sooner!
Thank you so much! I have done this before, but couldn’t remember how! Very helpfull!
This worked great, Thanks. But now all my pics come up in paint, Why?
Right-click an image file, and choose “Open with >” and then pick the program you want to use to open that image file type (if it’s listed), or pick “Choose default program” and select from the longer list. Ta-da!
What exactly “whodduh thunkit” means? I couldn’t find it from dictionary and it was not taught in our English classes…
Oops! It’s a silly way of saying: “Who would have thought it?”
Works great!
Thank you! 🙂
Brilliant… thank you.