Magpie Help
← Printing at home

Print sheets

Choose paper and print size, adjust crops, make a PDF, print it at 100%, and mark the photos printed.

A print sheet is a PDF you print on your own printer. Each photo is cropped to the size you choose and placed on the page at 300 dpi.

Make a sheet

  1. On the Print queue board, choose Make print sheet.
  2. Under Paper, pick the paper in your printer: 4 × 6 in photo paper, 5 × 7 in photo paper, or Letter.
  3. Under Print size, pick the size of each print: 4 × 6 in, 5 × 7 in, 8 × 10 in, 3 × 4 in card, or Wallet. A size that is too big for the paper is marked “(doesn’t fit this paper)”.
  4. Choose Make sheet.

You can also start from your timeline. Select photos, then open More in the selection bar and choose Make print sheet (Add to print queue is there too). The builder opens with those photos.

The default is 4 × 6 in paper with 4 × 6 in prints, one borderless print per page. The builder tells you how many prints fit on each page and how many pages your sheet will have. Every sheet uses one print size.

Crops

Each photo is cropped to fill its print. Under Crop, use the slider for a photo to move its crop. The crop only affects the sheet. Your original and your edits aren’t changed. If you’ve edited a photo, the sheet uses its current edit and starts from that edit’s crop. The preview shows any turn or flip from your edit, and the slider moves the crop only within the part of the photo your edit kept.

Photos that are too small

If a photo would print at less than 200 dpi at the size you chose, the builder warns you before it makes anything: “1 photo has less than 200 dpi at this size and may print soft.” Try a smaller size, or choose Print anyway.

Wait for the sheet

Sheets are made in the background. You’ll see “Making your sheet…” and then “Your sheet is ready.” Choose Download PDF.

You can have up to 3 sheets being made at a time. If you try more, you’ll see “Several print sheets are still being made.” Wait for one to finish and try again.

If a sheet fails, the message says why, and you can choose Try again:

  • A photo’s original is missing. Remove that photo from the selection.
  • A photo is in a format that can’t be printed yet, such as a video. Remove it.
  • There isn’t enough space right now. Try again later, or with fewer photos.
  • Something else went wrong. Try again.

Some edits can’t be included in a sheet yet. If a photo has one, you’ll be asked to remove it from the selection.

Open the PDF and print it at actual size: 100%, with scaling turned off. “Fit to page” and “shrink to fit” make the prints the wrong size. Use the paper you chose in the builder. Choose Printing tips in the builder for a reminder.

Sheets are kept for 7 days. After that the PDF is removed, and you can make a new one.

Mark printed

Once the prints are done, choose Mark printed and confirm. Each photo moves to Printed, the print is recorded, and the photo’s badge changes to Printed. Print it again later and it reads Printed 2×.

If a photo left the library after you made the sheet, it can’t be marked. You’ll see “1 photo was skipped because it is no longer in the library.” The rest are marked as normal.

A sheet can be marked printed only once. Choosing it again doesn’t add another print.

Who can do it

Contributors, Editors and Owners can make sheets and mark photos printed. Viewers can’t.