How To Print Out Bullet Journal Pages & Stickers From JPG Or PNG Files

You found a perfect printable for your bujo and successfully downloaded it, but now you might wonder how to print out those bullet journal pages or stickers from JPG/JPEG or PDF files so they match the size of your journal – or the size you wish to have.

If your download also comes with a separate PDF file and you already know how to print to the right paper size from a PDF file type, then you can freely forget about this whole thing. 😉

However, if you have only a JPG/JPEG or a PNG file type at your disposal and don’t know what to do with it – keep reading.

Before we begin, I have to point out that there are a number of ways in which you can print out your bullet journal printables from JPG/JPEG and PNG files, so there isn’t only one way that’s “right”.

You see, since these file types belong to the image category, you can open them up with any image-reading software (a.k.a. program) and use an option to print them out straight from there.

However, in this post, I’ll show you a step-by-step guide on how to print out your bullet journal pages and stickers from JPG or PNG files using word editing software, because I believe this approach gives you more control of the printing process.

Although Microsoft Word for Windows and Apple Pages for Mac are widely used word processing software, I decided to explain the entire printing process using LibreOffice Writer (a part of LibreOffice suite) since it is free, open-source software available for all operating systems.

And don’t worry if you’re already using some other word editor, you don’t need to install LibreOffice Writer to follow through this guide.

As you will see, the basic commands and logic remain the same across different software, and if there are any differences at all I’m sure you’ll easily find an equivalent term or a specific place where you need to click in a program you’re currently using.

And now it’s finally time to start explaining the printing process. 🙂

Depending on whether you want to print a complete bujo page (for example, a mood tracker page) or only a certain element you wish to add to your bullet journal (such as a sticker or other bujo elements) you’ll approach the printing process in a slightly different way, and I’ll do my best to explain all the steps you need to take in both of these cases.

Printing out a page so that it fits the full page size of your bullet journal

There are a few details you need to know upfront if you need to print out a page so that it fits the entire page of your bullet journal.

The first thing is the paper size of your journal – so measure its width and length if you’re not already familiar with it.
The next thing you need to know is the paper size you’re using to print out the page of your choice.

The most commonly used printing paper sizes are A4 and letter, but since the majority of journals come in a size that’s similar to A5 size, you’ll most probably print out a page that’s smaller than the size of the paper you’re printing at.

Finally, what’s the paper size in which the JPG/JPEG or PDF file was created?

(this is not a must, but only handy information, so don’t worry about this one if you don’t know)

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to show you the printing process.

Start with opening a new document in your word processor program (as mentioned above, LibreOffice Writer is used as a tool to describe this process, and all the screenshots you see here display this specific software).
Make the page to be of the same size as your printing paper size.

In case you’re not sure what size is the page that was opened in your program, or you want to change its size, follow these steps:

Go to “Format” and select “Page…”

A pop-up window appears where you can select the size of the paper (from “Paper Format” – “Format:” drop-down menu)

If you’re using some custom printing paper size, you can define it by selecting “User” from the “Format:” drop-down menu, and then entering its dimensions below (in the “Width:” and “Height:” boxes)

Keep the paper orientation to “Portrait”

Most probably your printable is already created having borders in mind, so you can freely change the margins on your page to zero.

This step is not mandatory if your journal size is smaller than your printer paper size, but if these two values are the same (for example, if your journal is A5 size and so is your printing paper) you’ll get a page that’s laid out better if you remove all margins – see the difference on the image below.

Now it’s time for the next step – placing your digital download on this piece of paper.

Since your printable belongs to the image file type, you can either:

Go to “Insert” – “Image…”
- In the pop-up window, search for the location of your printable, select it, and click open

Drop it directly to the page by dragging the icon from its location to your active word-processing document.

Once you’ve placed the image (that is, your printable) you’ll notice it’s as big as the size it’s created at.

The image below shows an A5 image (printable) inserted onto A4 size paper.

You can position it on a page using “Format” – “Image” – “Properties…”

and from the “Type” card select its position on a horizontal and vertical axis (switch to Entire page on both axes to get more freedom of image movement)

You can do the same by clicking the left/centered/right or top/middle/bottom icon, which all appear when the image is selected (when you click on an image).

(note – some movements may not work if the “Entire page” is not checked first)

Finally, if your journal size is not the same as the size of your printable, here’s how to resize the image so that it fits your bullet journal page:

Go to “Format” – “Image” – “Properties…”
From the “Type” card, in the “Size” settings choose the desired width and height (which is the size of your journal’s page)

If the width-to-height ratio from the original image differs from the one of your choice (which is usually the case, the only question is how much it will differ), note that your image might look more or less distorted.

To avoid this from happening, you can check a “Keep ratio” box and, depending on what suits you better, pick a maximum value for width or height.

(notice how the circle is round here and squished a bit on a former image)

Lastly, if you want to know where are the exact borders of the image you’re printing (so you can cut the image more easily and precisely once it’s printed out) you can create a border around an image by following the steps below:

Go to “Format” – “Image” – “Properties…” and choose the “Borders” card
In the “Line Arrangement” select the “Set All Four Borders” icon and set all “Padding” values to zero.

This gives your printable a border so you can cut it out more easily later on.

Once you have all this set, proceed to the standard “File” – “Print…” command and print out your bullet journal printable.

Printing out individual JPG/JPEG or PNG elements

In some cases, you might get a set of individual JPG/JPEG or PNG bullet journal elements.

This is an especially common case with stickers – and who doesn’t like a new set of stickers for their journal, right? 😉

Now, you might wish to print out some bullet journal pages or stickers only once, some maybe not at all, and some others in larger quantities – and to be more environment-friendly, you can print out a number of elements on a single page, instead of making numerous copies with only one element per printing page.

Also, you might want to resize an individual element first so that it fits your bullet journal layout better (and then print it out once or in many copies).

Here’s how to do all of this.

Follow steps 1-4 from Printing out a page so that it fits the full page size of your bullet journal.

Important note – in step 3, don’t change the margins on your page to zero because, almost exclusively, individual JPG/JPEG and PNG elements don’t have a large enough border around them, and you don’t want to end up with a cropped image.

Therefore, set the margins so that the rest of the page fits in your printing area.

(about a centimeter of margins from all sides should be enough, but you can set them even higher to be on the safe side)

Once you’ve placed an image into your word processing document, if needed, you can scale it to a size that suits you by following step 6 from Printing out a page so that it fits the full page size of your bullet journal.

Also, if you want to scale the image, I recommend that you only scale down an image, not enlarge it because if you do the latter you might end up with a low-quality (pixelated) image.

If you want to make multiple copies of the same image on one piece of paper:
1. Right-click on the image and select “Copy”

Right-click again and select “Paste” to make a single copy.

Repeat the process if you want multiple copies of that single image.

Since the copied images tend to be placed right next to each other, with no spaces in between, you can have a hard time cutting them. You can avoid this by manually moving each image a bit, just make sure you don’t go over your page margins.

To add another image go to “Insert” – “Image…”, locate your file, and add it to the page.

(repeat image scaling and copying if needed)

Here’s an example of a page that’s prepared for the printing phase with different elements added to it.

And that should be it – a step-by-step guide on how to print out bullet journal pages or stickers from JPG/JPEG or PDF files.

I do hope I explained it well so you don’t have any problems with printing out different bullet journal printables.

(also, you can find all pages seen in this post and many, many more as printables in the bullet journal section of my shop)

In case you’re also looking for a tutorial on how to print out your bujo pages from PDF files, feel free to check that out as well.

Don’t forget to save this post to Pinterest so you can revisit it any time you like, and most importantly – enjoy your bullet journaling adventure!