How to Print Sheet Music at Home — The Complete Guide

You've got a folder full of sheet music PDFs. Maybe you downloaded them, scanned them, or exported them from notation software. Now you want to print them — and actually end up with something you can put on a music stand and read at arm's length.

This guide covers everything: printer settings, single vs double-sided, page alignment, and how to turn a pile of loose sheets into a proper bound music book.

Why Print Sheet Music?

Digital screens are convenient, but they come with real problems for musicians. Tablets run out of battery mid-rehearsal. Phone screens are too small. Laptops can't sit on a music stand. And glare under stage lights makes everything unreadable.

Printed sheet music lies flat, never needs charging, and is readable at any distance. You can annotate it with pencil, dog-ear the pages, and flip to any song in seconds. For practice, rehearsal, and performance, paper still wins.

Single-Sided vs Double-Sided

Single-sided is simpler — no alignment worries, and you can rearrange pages freely. The downside: you use twice as much paper, and your book is twice as thick.

Double-sided gives you a thinner, more professional book. But it introduces the page alignment problem: if a 3-page song starts on the back of another song, you'll be flipping pages mid-performance. More on that below.

For most musicians, double-sided is worth it — especially once you solve the alignment issue.

Printer Settings That Actually Work

Most printing problems come from wrong settings. Here's what to use for sheet music:

• Two-sided printing (duplex): Turn this on if your printer supports it. Otherwise, print odd pages first, flip, then print even pages.
• Flip on long edge: This is critical for portrait-oriented music. It means the back of each page is oriented correctly when you turn the page like a book.
• Scaling — Fit to page: Use "Fit to page" or "Actual size". Never use "Shrink to fit" — it makes notes too small to read from a stand.
• Paper size: A4 (most of the world) or Letter (US/Canada). Make sure your PDF page size matches your paper.
• Quality: Standard quality is fine. High quality uses more ink without much benefit for black-and-white sheet music.

The Page Alignment Problem

This is the biggest frustration with double-sided printing. If Song A has 3 pages and Song B follows immediately, Song B starts on the back of Song A's last page. Now you can't see the start of Song B without flipping away from Song A's ending.

The fix: insert a blank page after any song with an odd number of pages. That pushes the next song to a fresh left-hand page. Doing this manually for 30+ songs is tedious — but MakeMySongBook handles it automatically.

For a deeper dive into this topic, read our complete guide to double-sided music book printing.

Booklet Format — Fold & Staple

There's another way to print your music that's even more compact: the booklet format. Instead of printing one page per sheet, MakeMySongBook places two pages side by side on each A4 sheet — but in a special order. When you fold the stack in half and staple the spine, the pages read 1, 2, 3, 4... in the correct sequence.

This is called imposition, and it's the same technique used to print real magazines and pamphlets. The tricky part is the page reordering — for an 8-page booklet, page 8 and page 1 go on the same side of the first sheet, while page 2 and page 7 go on the back. Getting this wrong means your booklet reads out of order after folding.

The result is a compact A5 booklet — half the size of a full A4 book, easy to carry, and perfect for gig bags. MakeMySongBook handles all the page reordering automatically. You just hit export, print on regular A4, fold, and staple.

Booklet format works best for shorter collections — up to about 40 pages. For longer books, the fold gets too thick and the staples won't hold. In that case, stick with the full A4 book format and use spiral or comb binding instead.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of booklet printing, see our dedicated booklet printing guide.

From Loose Sheets to a Proper Book

A stack of printed pages isn't a book. Pages fall off the music stand, get out of order, and blow away in the wind. A binder helps, but it's bulky and the rings get in the way.

A bound book — with a cover, table of contents, and chapter dividers — is what you actually want. It lies flat on the stand, stays in order, and looks professional. You can build one in minutes with MakeMySongBook: upload your PDFs, organize them into chapters, add a cover, and export a print-ready PDF.

Book Format vs Booklet Format

MakeMySongBook supports two formats:

• Full Book (A4): Each page of the PDF prints on one side of an A4 sheet. Great for larger collections with 20+ songs. Bind with spiral, comb, or a simple staple.
• Booklet (A5): Two pages per A4 sheet, reordered for folding and stapling. You get a compact half-size book. Perfect for shorter collections (up to ~40 pages) or portable gig books.

For details on booklet imposition, see our booklet printing guide.

Binding Options

After printing, you need to bind your pages into a book. Here are the most practical options for home-printed music books:

• Spiral binding: Lies completely flat, easy to turn pages. Most print shops offer spiral binding for a few dollars. Best for thick books.
• Saddle stitch (stapled): Fold your pages in half and staple along the spine. Works well for booklets up to ~60 pages. Clean and compact.
• Comb binding: Affordable home binding machines use plastic combs. Allows adding/removing pages later. Available at most office supply stores.

For a complete comparison, see our binding options guide.

Tips for the Best Results

• Test print one song first. Before printing an entire book, print a single song double-sided to verify your settings work. Check that the back page is oriented correctly and that the music is large enough to read.
• Use consistent PDF sizes. Mixing A4 and Letter PDFs in the same book can cause scaling issues. Convert everything to the same page size before printing.
• Print in black and white. Sheet music is almost always black on white. Printing in grayscale saves ink without any loss of readability.
• Leave margins for binding. If you're using spiral or comb binding, make sure your music doesn't extend too close to the left edge. MakeMySongBook leaves appropriate margins automatically.
• Consider the print shop. For large books or multiple copies, a print shop may be cheaper and faster than printing at home. See our print shop guide for tips. For home printing, see our home printing guide.

Frequently Asked Questions