Resume Print Settings: Color, Double-Sided, and Print Shop Decisions
The right resume print settings: single-sided, black and white, laser printing, from a PDF. Four rules, no exceptions. Get these right and the rest is just clicking OK in the print dialog.
Most "print settings" questions boil down to whether your home printer can produce clean output, whether color adds anything (it doesn't), and whether to double-side to save paper (don't). The answers aren't surprising. Candidates just haven't been told them directly.
Key Takeaways
- Always print single-sided. Even if your resume runs to 2 pages of paper.
- Black and white, 99% of the time. Color adds risk without adding signal.
- Laser printing beats inkjet, sharper text, no smudge, no streaking.
- Always export to PDF before printing. Word documents render differently on every machine.
- If your home printer isn't a laser with fresh toner, use a print shop. It's faster and safer than troubleshooting a bad home setup the night before.
Color or black and white
Black and white, 99% of the time.
Color printing on a resume doesn't add professional signal, it adds risk. Cartridges drift in tone between batches. Colors render differently on every printer. What looks like subtle navy blue on your home monitor can print as purple-gray on a different machine. Meanwhile, recruiters barely register color on a resume, they read content, not design, in the first 6 to 8 seconds.
The narrow exception: creative industries where the resume itself is a portfolio piece. Design roles, art direction, creative agency work. If your resume includes actual visual samples or color-coded design elements, color is warranted. Even then, keep the palette restrained, two colors maximum, used intentionally.
For every other industry: black ink on white or ivory paper. Every time.
To force black-and-white in the print dialog even when your PDF has colored elements: open the print dialog, click "Properties" or "Preferences" (varies by OS and printer), find the color options, and select "Greyscale" or "Print in black and white only." This overrides any color in the source PDF. Worth doing to save toner on draft prints.
Single-sided or double-sided
Single-sided, always. Even if your resume runs to a second page.
Double-siding a resume reads as trying to save paper at the wrong moment. It also hurts the interviewer's experience, they can't set the pages down side-by-side to scan both at once. The cost of an extra sheet of paper is zero. The cost of reading as unprepared is not.
To force single-sided in a print dialog: look for "layout" or "duplex" settings. Select "one-sided" or "simplex." On macOS, it's under Layout → Two-Sided → Off. On Windows, it's usually under printer properties → finishing or layout tab.
If your printer's default is duplex, override it every time you print a resume. Don't trust that the default stayed off between print jobs.
Laser or inkjet
Laser every time. For resumes specifically, laser is the default, not a preference.
Laser printers use toner, a powder fused to the paper with heat. The result: crisp text, no smudge, no streaking, no issues with humidity. Reads professional the second someone picks up the page.
Inkjet printers use liquid ink. The result depends entirely on cartridge freshness. An inkjet with recently-installed cartridges produces acceptable output. An inkjet that's been sitting idle for 3 weeks produces streaky, faded first pages that get usable around page 5, long after you've wasted good paper.
If you're using an inkjet, always run a test page on regular paper first. Look for streaks, faintness, color drift, or uneven ink coverage. If any of those show up, stop. Don't print your resume on that machine. Go to a print shop.
If you own a laser, check toner levels before printing. Faded text from low toner is the single most common resume printing mistake candidates make. Swap the cartridge if levels are below 20%.
Home or print shop
Decision tree:
- Laser printer at home with fresh toner → home
- Laser printer at home with toner below 20% → swap toner OR go to print shop
- Inkjet with fresh cartridges plus a clean test page → home
- Inkjet with old cartridges OR streaky test page → print shop
- No home printer → print shop
Any neighborhood print shop works. FedEx Office, Staples, and most local print shops offer laser printing on your own paper for 50 cents to 2 dollars per page. Bring:
- Your PDF on a USB stick, or email it to yourself and pull it up on their machine
- Your own paper, they'll swap out their house stock for yours
- A specific ask: "laser print, single-sided, [N] copies"
Total time: about 5 minutes if it's not busy. Worth every dollar the night before an interview.
File format: PDF, always
Always print from PDF. Never print a Word document directly.
Word documents render differently on different machines. Your bullet that fit perfectly on line 7 at home may wrap to a second line on the print shop's printer. Margins shift. Fonts substitute if the target machine doesn't have your exact font installed. The layout you proofread on your screen isn't necessarily what comes out of the printer.
PDF locks all of that. The rendering is identical on every machine.
To export from Word: File → Export → Create PDF/XPS. Don't use "Save As → PDF" in older Word versions, it can include print-time metadata that changes the output.
To export from Google Docs: File → Download → PDF Document (.pdf).
Name the file so the print shop can find it: firstname-lastname-resume.pdf. Not "resume-final-v3.pdf" or "new-resume-actually-final.pdf", clean, professional filename.
Double-check the PDF before printing. Open it, zoom to 100%, scan every page. What you see is what you'll get.
DPI, scaling, and margins
Scaling: always print at "Actual size" or 100%. Never use "Fit to page", it crops or shrinks the layout in ways that look off.
DPI: default is fine. Modern laser printers render at 600 DPI minimum, which is overkill for resume text. There's no "high quality" setting that meaningfully improves a resume print.
Margins: set the margins in the PDF itself (0.5 to 1 inch), not in the print dialog. If you're seeing clipped edges when printing, the issue is either the PDF margins or the "Fit to page" setting, fix one or both.
Print one test copy on regular paper before running the full stack on the good paper. Faded toner and clipped margins show up on the physical copy, not on the screen.
The short version
Four rules:
- Black and white (override to greyscale in the print dialog if needed)
- Single-sided (override any duplex default)
- Laser (home if fresh toner, print shop otherwise)
- From PDF (never from Word)
Check a test copy before printing on the good paper. Spend 5 minutes at a print shop if anything about your home setup feels wrong. The night before an interview is not the moment to troubleshoot a printer.
For the full printing workflow, see how to print a resume (2026 guide). For paper specs, see best resume paper.
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