Teachers use Adobe PDF to print almost everything. As a teacher, I know you probably think that you spend way too much money on ink and paper. I know I do, but, what are you gonna do? In this post, I’ve put together 8 Adobe PDF printing tips and tricks for saving money (and time) using the built-in print settings. Just a note, I probably wouldn’t use some of these on graded work since I wouldn’t want a student’s lack of success to be associated with the size of the activity. Let’s get to it!

Tip #1: “I Have, Who Has?” Activities

Usually, teachers create “I Have, Who Has” activities with 4 per page. But really, they don’t have to be that big. I have found that making them smaller, not only saves me ink, paper (and money), but the kids seem to LOVE the smaller cards. Check out the pics below of how you can turn an “I Have, Who Has?” activity into a station activity.

After doing the “I Have, Who Has” activity with the entire class, it can be moved into a center/station. The cards are small that they won’t take up much space. Kids can line them up until they come to the last card. They love this! It can be done independently or with a partner/group.

 

Below are the Adobe PDF print settings that I used to make these cute little cards.

 

 

Tip #2: Booklets

This year our school was being a little stingy with paper (hashtag eye roll…lol). I wanted to make a fun booklet for my students but I didn’t want to get busted for using a bunch of paper. Instead of full-size booklets, I re-sized them and used a fraction of the paper – voila, mini booklets! Here how I did it…

 

Below are the Adobe PDF print settings that I used to make these mini books. Since this booklet features cut and paste activities, I had to make them single sided. If your booklet doesn’t have cut and paste, you would use even less than this. You could also make the booklets half sheets instead of quarter sheets.

 

Tip #3: Task Cards

Task Cards really don’t need to be as big as they usually are. You can save on card stock and ink by simply using this Adobe printing tip below to make them smaller. Here is a set that I scaled down to half the size, and they are still big enough for students to write on with their dry erase marker.

 

Here are the print settings I used to make these HALF as Big.

 

Tip #4: Word Searches

Word Searches are super fun for kids, so why not make them even more fun!? Check this out and look carefully at the printing directions for this one.

If you only want one page on the sheet repeated 4 times, make sure to look at the “PAGES” section on the print directions!

 

Tip #5: Posters

Have you ever wanted to give each of your students a helpful colorful poster to put in their Reading or Math Notebook? To do this, it would be quite expensive and full sized pages wouldn’t fit. But if you shrink them down to about 1/4 the size, it is pretty doable, even if they are in color.