Print a map or layout

After you've created a map or layout, you can share it by printing it.

Print a map or layout by doing the following:

  1. Make sure a map or layout is your active view.
  2. On the Share tab, in the Output group, click Print Map Print or Print Layout Print Layout, depending on the active view.

    The Print Map or Print Layout pane appears.

  3. Choose a printer from the Printer Name drop-down list.
  4. Set any additional properties for the print job, such as page orientation and number of copies.
  5. Click Print.
  6. Optionally, once the printing has completed, select another map or layout view to print.

Printing options

You can set a variety of printing options in the Print Layout and Print Map panes. The options are common to most printers. If you need to access additional printer properties specific to your printer, click the Properties button under the printer name.

You can set the following properties in the pane:

PropertyDescription
Printer Name

The printer where the job will be sent.

Size

The paper size the map or layout will be printed on.

Source

The paper source for the printer, such as Tray 1 or Tray 2.

Orientation

The page orientation for printing. If printing a layout, this can be different than the layout page orientation. Choose between Portrait Portrait or Landscape Landscape.

Number of copies

The number of times the layout or map is printed.

Show printer margins

Show the printable area of the selected printer on the layout page. Use this option to check all the layout elements fit in the printable area. These lines are for reference in the layout view only and do not appear on the printed page.

Print as image

The print job is converted into raster content before it is sent to the printer. This can help alleviate color- and content-fidelity issues if the selected print driver has issues processing the print job.

If this option is unchecked, metafile information is sent directly to the print driver for conversion to the printer's native format.

Tiling

How the layout is printed if the page size and orientation do not match the printer paper size and orientation. See the Print tiling section below for additional information.

Output Quality

The amount of raster resampling, which determines the raster resolution (dpi). Raster resolution is a ratio of your printer resolution. If the ratio is set to 1:3, the raster data will be printed at one-third the dpi set for your printer. You can change the ratio to increase the quality of your raster data or decrease the quality and print faster. If your map does not contain raster data, this setting is not applicable.

Map Series

The map series pages that are printed. See the Print a map series section below for additional information.

Print to file

Create a printer file (.prn) instead of printing immediately. Use the Browse button Browse to set where the file will be created.

Print tiling

Use tiling options to specify how the layout is printed on the printer paper. This is important if your layout is larger or smaller than the printer paper size, because the tiling options determine whether the layout will be scaled. If your layout is the same size as the printer paper, no scaling will occur. To determine whether your layout will fit on the printer paper size, review the Tiling section. It displays an image of the printer paper and a blue map representing the elements on the layout. If the map area is outside the paper area, your layout doesn't fit on the printer paper, and you'll need to use a different tiling option to print the entire layout. There are three options:

  • Actual—Print the layout at its size without fitting it to the printer paper size. Use this option when the layout is the same size as the printer paper or to print a small layout on larger printer paper with white space around it.
  • Fit to paper size—Shrink or stretch the layout to fit on the printer paper. Use this option for layouts larger or smaller than the printer paper when the layout needs to fill the entire page.
  • Tile oversized—Print the entire layout across multiple pages. Use this option for layouts larger than the printer paper size when you need to preserve the layout size.

When Tile oversized is selected, you can print all the tiles or a selection of tiles. To see how the layout will be tiled across multiple printed pages, check Show tiling lines. These lines are for reference only and are not printed. To print only certain tiles, choose the Tiles button and type the tile numbers in the text box. You can also check the Print overlap guides text box to specify an overlap of the printed area in points. This overlap can be useful when piecing the tiles together after printing.

Note:

Tiling options are only available for printing a layout, not a map.

Print a map series

If the layout you are printing contains a map series, you can choose which pages of the map series to print. Expand the Map Series heading to choose the pages. The following options are available:

  • All—Print all the pages in the map series.
  • Current—Print only the page currently displayed in the layout view.
  • Selected index features—Print the map series pages for the index features selected in the map. You can show or hide the selection symbols for the index features.
  • Selected pages—Print the pages selected in the contents pane.
  • Page range—Print only the pages specified.

Note:

Selected index features is not available for bookmark map series because a bookmark map series doesn't have an index layer.

Choosing Page range requires you to input the pages you want to print. You can input individual page numbers separated by commas or a range of pages separated by a dash. For example, 1,2,5-8 will print the first, second, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth pages of the map series.

If a map is being printed or if the layout being printed does not contain a map series, these options are not available.

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