Print to PDF is a virtual printer. The application hands it the same page description it would hand a real one, and it writes a PDF instead of printing.
So it captures appearance and discards the rest: no bookmarks, no tagged structure, and through a printer driver no clickable links. If the application has its own Export or Save as PDF, use that instead.
It is built into Windows, macOS, Linux and every mainstream browser, and it will produce a PDF from anything that can be printed at all. That reach is useful, and it is also why people use it when something better sits one menu away.
How the virtual printer works
When an application prints, it does not send the document. It builds a description of the finished pages: place this glyph here, draw this line there, at these coordinates on a sheet of this size. That description goes to the printer driver.
A virtual PDF printer accepts the same description and writes it into a PDF instead of onto paper. This is why the visual result is so faithful. It is receiving exactly what would have been printed.
What does not survive
- Exact visual appearanceKept
- Selectable textUsually kept
- Embedded fontsKept
- Clickable hyperlinksDiscarded by drivers
- Bookmarks and outlineDiscarded
- Tagged reading orderDiscarded
- Form fieldsFlattened
Text usually remains selectable, which surprises people who expect a printout to be an image. The page description references real fonts and glyph positions, so the text is real text. What is missing is the layer of meaning above it.
Browsers are a partial exception for links. Chrome's "Save as PDF" destination is built into the browser rather than being a printer driver, and it keeps a web page's links clickable. The Windows "Microsoft Print to PDF" driver, like a physical printer, receives no links at all. When a page's links matter and you are not sure which route you are on, the guide to converting HTML to PDF compares them.
When it is the right tool
Given all that, it still earns its place in several situations.
The alternative does not exist
- The application has no export option at all
- You are printing from a legacy or niche program
- You want a record of exactly what would print
- You need to flatten form fields into the page
The application offers one
- The document has links worth keeping
- Headings should become navigable bookmarks
- Anyone might use a screen reader
- You will want to edit or extract from it later
Settings that change the result
The print dialog controls the output, and a few of its options matter more than the rest.
Scale, and the fit-to-page trap
Anything other than 100 percent resizes the content. Shrink to fit is the default in some applications and produces a document with unexpectedly wide margins and slightly small text.
Margins
Set by the print dialog, not the document. Minimum margins give you more content per page, and default margins can crop content that sits close to the edge.
Headers and footers
Browsers add the URL, page title and date unless told not to. On anything meant to look like a document rather than a printout, turn them off.
Using it deliberately to flatten
There is one case where the losses are the point. Printing a filled form to PDF turns the field values into ordinary page content, so the answers cannot be edited or accidentally cleared.
There is a catch. The printout holds only what your viewer drew on screen, and some browser viewers draw the page layer without the typed values. Check the print preview shows the answers before you save. Flatten PDF avoids the question by drawing form values, comments and stamps into the page directly, without the print dialog.
It is one-way. The fields are gone, not disabled, so keep the fillable original if anyone might need to change an answer later.
Flatten without going through the print dialog
Forms, comments and stamps drawn into the page, keeping the resolution you started with.
Common questions
When to use it and when not to.
01Is Print to PDF the same as exporting to PDF?
No. Exporting builds the PDF from the document, keeping links, bookmarks and structure. Print to PDF receives only the page description a printer would get, which contains appearance and nothing else, so all of that is discarded.
02Why are my hyperlinks not clickable?
Because a printer driver has no concept of a hyperlink, so the information was never sent. The blue underlined text is just text. Use the application's own export if the links matter, or in a browser choose Save as PDF rather than a Print to PDF printer.
03Is the text still selectable?
Usually yes. If it selects but pastes as nonsense characters, the font was written without a map from its glyphs back to Unicode letters, which some older drivers do. Re-exporting from the source fixes that; printing again with the same driver does not.
04Why does my document have big margins?
Usually a scale option such as shrink to fit. Set the scale to 100 percent first. If the content then runs off the sheet, the paper size selected in the dialog does not match the document's, for example A4 content printed to Letter.
05How do I stop the URL printing on every page?
Turn off headers and footers in the print dialog. In Chrome and Edge the checkbox sits under More settings; Safari and Firefox each have a Print headers and footers option in the same dialog.
06Should I use Print to PDF to finalise a form?
It works if your viewer draws the typed values, so check the print preview shows the answers first. Keep the fillable original, since printing removes the fields rather than locking them.