How to print your paper

Walkthrough for composing and printing today's paper — a real, printable newspaper PDF built from feed content, on letter or press-size paper, in color or black & white. A member feature. Use when someone asks how to print the news, make a PDF, compose a print edition, pick a paper size, or get a physical paper.

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    Open the print edition Open

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    Pick where the stories come from — this feed, your picks, or the From Across archive

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    Pick a paper size — Letter for home printers, or a press size

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    Choose color or black & white

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    Shuffle the layout until it looks right

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    Print or save as PDF

Your feed can become a real newspaper. The print edition composes feed content into a printable paper — masthead, columns, the whole thing — that you can print or save as a PDF.

Printing is a member feature (currently in beta): members can print their own feed, their publications, and the local feed. If you're not a member yet, the print page explains how to join — details live on the membership page.

The masthead and edition date fill in on their own — the feed's name (a publication's, or the member's own) and today's date. Both can be adjusted in the toolbar, which matters most for a hand-picked "My picks" edition that deserves a title of its own.

Where the stories come from

The Stories control picks the source. This feed composes from the feed you came from. My picks composes only from the stories you saved to your print tray, so you choose exactly what runs. From Across prints the archive of everything ever highlighted on From Across My Local Press — every story, oldest first, so the paper reads as the history. It's the one long edition: it prints up to 32 pages where the others stop at 8, and instead of a single edition date it datelines itself with the span of dates the stories were highlighted, so there's no date to set.

Paper sizes

The Paper control offers Letter (8.5×11″) for home printers, and three press sizes: 10.5×11″, 10.5×14″, and 10.5×16″ — the PDF sizes community presses run on 24″, 30″, and 34″ paper. A wide-format home printer can use the press sizes too. The Ink control switches the whole edition between color and black & white.

Printing at home

Print at 100% scale, never "fit to page" — the PDF is already the exact paper size. Heavier paper reads more like a newspaper than standard copy stock.

Printing at a press

The press sizes come straight from The Trust Press — the nonprofit community press from the National Trust for Local News — so an edition printed here is already sized for their presses. A press run is a relationship: run size, schedule, and the final file details get worked out with the press directly, and we're in that conversation. Our Resources page has the introduction.

Other printers are welcome too. If a press has different requirements, or the size a publication needs is missing, tell us — we'll add their needs to our specs and make it work. The feedback form reaches us.

Related: Finding local news and content, What is My Local Press?