SSRS Report Prints Extra Pages

Problem

Recently run into an issue that caused me spend more time trying figure out what to do that it did to fix it. I got a very simple ticket. Client reports that extra pages are being printed on SSRS report when it is being sent to a specific printer but other printers are fine, additionally printing to PDF is fine.

After some research, I found multiple articles online that talk about improper page and body setup that results in extra pages. Since I'm not used to working on SSRS report inside BIDS (Bussiness Intelligence Development Studio) which was a precursor to SSDT (SQL Server Data Tools), It took me for longer than I would expect to accomplish a simple task. Therefore I'm hoping the following screenshots will save someone (most likely me) time in fixing this issue.

Solution

Step 1:

Open report in Design mode which is causing issues.

Step 2:

Verify printer margins by right clicking on empty space and selecting Report Properties

Step 3:

Check all margins, for some older printers margins, should be at least .25in to be on safe side. Newer printers can go less but some of older printers can not do it.

Step 4:

Calculate maximum report body size by subtracting margins from width and height, in my case

Width - Left - Right (11 - .5 - .6) = 9.9in

Height - Top - Bottom (8.5 - .5 - .25) = 7.75in

Step 5:

Click on the body of the report to see height and width in the properties window. Now you can adjust the size to be less than calculated size from previous step.

Conlusion

Now you are all done, all that is left is to publish changes and deploy report to the client.