Get the scale setting right before anything else
"Fit to page" sounds harmless, but what it actually does is quietly rescale the file up or down until it fills whatever margins the printer driver has decided on. For a worksheet with a ruler exercise, a number grid, or a shape to trace, that rescaling changes the real measurements on the page. A line drawn at 2cm might print at 1.9cm. A grid box that's supposed to be exactly one centimeter square ends up slightly rectangular. Kids have no way of knowing that happened; they just assume they measured wrong.
Set the scale to 100%, or "Actual size," in the print dialog. Do it once for a PDF and most printers remember it as the default afterward. The second setting worth checking, especially the first time you print from a new printer or a new app, is margins. Some drivers default to a 0.5-inch margin on every side, and if a worksheet was designed with text or a border close to the edge, that margin can quietly crop off a row of problems or the corner of a page number. If a printout looks like something's missing, don't assume the file itself is broken, check the margin setting first. Most drivers let you shrink margins down to around 0.2 inches, or offer a "borderless" option if the printer supports it.
Glance at the print preview before you hit print, especially on a new printer. It takes ten seconds and it's the only real way to catch a cropped edge before you've already wasted a sheet on it.
Paper weight and finish actually matter
For coloring pages, slightly heavier paper (80gsm or more) keeps crayon or colored pencil from bleeding through, go even heavier if your child uses watercolor pencils. Skip glossy paper for anything a child will write on with pencil, though. The slick surface makes the pencil skate around, and erasing tends to smear or tear the coating instead of lifting cleanly. Plain matte copy paper handles pencil far better.
If you're printing a colorful worksheet on thin standard paper (under 60gsm) with an inkjet printer, ink can soak through to the back. Switching to 70–80gsm paper usually fixes it, or you can tell the printer driver the paper type is "heavier" or "cardstock-lite" rather than "plain," which tells it to lay down less ink per pass.
Ink-saving settings that don't wreck the page
For anything that doesn't need color, handwriting practice, math drills, word searches, switch the print option to grayscale (or black-and-white) and turn on draft mode. That skips the color cartridge entirely, ink use drops a lot, and text-and-line worksheets barely look different from a full-quality print.
Don't use draft mode for detailed coloring pages, maps, or anything with photos, though. Draft mode sprays ink in a coarser dot pattern, and color areas come out blotchy and uneven. Splitting your printing this way, standard quality for anything where color matters, draft for everything else, adds up to real savings over a school year without anyone noticing a quality drop where it counts. One more thing worth checking if pages start coming out streaky or faded even at standard quality: run the printer's built-in cleaning cycle before you assume you need a new cartridge. Clogged nozzles are far more common than an actually empty one, and cleaning takes a couple of minutes.
Laminating for reuse with dry-erase markers
Worksheets meant to be practiced repeatedly, number writing, shape tracing, last much longer once laminated, since you can wipe them clean and reuse them. Use a proper dry-erase marker and wipe it while still fresh; permanent markers don't come off easily, so avoid those.
No laminator at home? Slipping the worksheet into a clear plastic sleeve gives a similar effect. Marker residue can leave faint stains on the sleeve over time, though, so make wiping it down right after use a habit.
A binder and folder system organized by subject
Once printed worksheets start piling up, it helps to set up separate folders or binder sections, by color, if you like, for math, language, puzzles/logic, and coloring/fine motor. Letting your child pull out "today's folder" themselves builds an organizing habit alongside the schoolwork.
Don't throw away completed worksheets; keep them in a separate "finished" section instead. A month or two's worth becomes a great visual record of your child's progress, and useful reference when choosing the next level of worksheets.
Printing habits that are kinder to the environment
For any worksheet that doesn't need to be graded, printing double-sided cuts your paper use roughly in half. Turn on double-sided printing as your default, and switch to single-sided only for worksheets you actually need to check and score.
Don't toss the backs of used worksheets; repurpose them as scratch paper for doodling or extra math practice. Telling your child "the side with the answers already on it is the front" is a simple, natural way to teach paper-saving habits too.