You can't 'turn it off' in teh admin section but you can comment it out in head.tpl.
find this code and comment it out.
<tr>
<td colspan="3" valign="middle" height="32">
<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
<tr>
{if (($main eq 'catalog' && $cat ne '') || $main eq 'product' || ($main eq 'comparison' && $mode eq 'compare_table') || ($main eq 'choosing' && $smarty.get.mode eq 'choose')) && $config.Appearance.enabled_printable_version eq 'Y'}
<td class="PrintableRow" align="right" colspan="3">{include file="printable.tpl"}</td>
{/if}
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>