Single-Sided PDF Printing

Introduction

Note (updated 11 October 2026): Single-sided printing is still available, but our ordering screens have changed since this post was written, so some of the details below may look different on the site today. If you have any trouble finding single-sided printing, contact us and we'll point you in the right direction.

Since we began in 2009, we've always printed double-sided, like a book.

There wasn't even an option to choose double-sided printing; we only did it that one way. Printed on both sides of the page, like a book. We used to say in checkout "Always printed double-sided."

The reasons we did this were obvious at least to us. Books are very rarely single sided.

One can say that making something heavier and bigger for no reason isn't a natural improvement, especially when the something needs to be shipped or carried. The extra paper adds additional costs and the final product is heavier so it costs more to ship. There's a financial incentive to be efficient and print double-sided.

So we had never considered offering single sided printing, but that changed in 2020.

Homeschooling Content for Younger Learners

When 2020 happened, we began receiving inquiries from homeschooling parents asking about single-sided printing for their PDFs. They were new users to our site and said their PDF content was designed to print on paper for their young student to use as a single sheet to write on, cut out, and/or to draw or color. Coming from a higher education perspective, this wasn't something we had considered and got our attention.

Some other comments we received described situations using worksheets where each lesson was a single page and they didn't want to give out both lessons at the same time, or make it easier to give out the lessons without giving out the next one on the back of the last page. Makes sense to us!

As more comments came in about offering single-sided printing, we investigated and it finally became obvious to us there is a need we had not considered, so we got to work.

Single Sided Printing on printMe1.com

The mad scientists of print here put our heads together and came up with single sided options for these types of print needs, and without over complicating our simple printing process.

The options appear in the print type as "B/W-Single Sided" and "Color- Single Sided". These are the fourth & fifth print types in the print option list after a PDF is uploaded. (The first three options are our usual double sided printing options.)

The B/W stands for "Black and White", which means we offer it as an option with our lower cost black and white print type.

"Always printed double-sided" on printMe1.com is now "Always printed double sided unless indicated otherwise".

Binding for Single Sided printing

Single-sided prints can use any of our binding options, as long as your PDF fits within the page limit for that binding. When printing single-sided, each page is its own sheet of paper, so the limits are lower than for double-sided printing:

GBC comb (included at no extra charge): up to 410 pages
Plastic coil (+$3.89): up to 201 pages
Wire-o (+$8.75 plus 2¢ per PDF page): up to 200 pages
Three hole punch (3HP): no limit, no charge
No binding: no limit, no charge

Our site only shows the bindings that fit your PDF, so you'll only see options that work for your page count.

Many single-sided users hand out pages one at a time, so 3HP and No Binding are still popular choices. 3HP means the prints are punched to use in a standard 3 ring binder. No binding means you receive printed sheets with nothing done to them, so the recipient can finish them however they like.

Important note for US recipients: unbound prints (3HP and No Binding) do not qualify as books for our Standard shipping under USPS policy, so US orders with unbound prints must ship by USPS First Class or Priority. Bound single-sided prints (comb, coil, or wire-o) can ship by Standard shipping like any other bound print.

Conclusion

printMe1.com is excited to offer single-sided printing options!!

The single sided printing options appear after uploading your first PDF as B/W- Single Sided and Color- Single Sided .

Selecting these options means we print in black and white or color respectively based on your selection, with the front sides of the sheets printed, and the back pages will be blank.

Single-sided prints can be bound with GBC comb, plastic coil, or wire-o, as long as your PDF fits the page limit for that binding, or you can choose three hole punch (3HP) or no binding.

Both 3HP and non binding are packaged shrink wrapped with a piece of study chip board backing, and then boxed for shipping.

There is no additional charge for 3HP or no binding. US residents please note that unbound prints do not qualify as books for our Standard shipping from the USPS, so choose USPS First Class or Priority for unbound prints going to US addresses. Bound single-sided prints can ship by Standard shipping.

Standard Canadian and UK shipping is available for a small additional charge.