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Printing · 4 min read

Printing Documents at the Correct Size: A4, Letter and “Actual Size”

Why printed copies come out too small, too large or cut off, the difference between A4 and Letter, and the print settings that keep forms and ID copies at true size.

A4 and Letter are different

A4 is 210 × 297 mm and is the standard paper in Pakistan, the Gulf, Europe and most of the world. US Letter is 8.5 × 11 inches (215.9 × 279.4 mm), slightly wider and shorter, and is used mainly in the United States and Canada.

A PDF made for Letter printed on A4 (or the other way round) gets scaled or cut at the edges. If a document will be printed in Pakistan or the Gulf, make the PDF A4.

Use the right print setting

  1. For ID card copies, passport photos and forms with boxes, choose “Actual size” or “100%” in the print dialog, not “Fit to page”.
  2. “Fit to page” is fine for letters and reports, where small scaling does not matter.
  3. Turn off any “Shrink oversized pages” option when you need exact size.
  4. Print one test page and measure it with a ruler before printing many copies.

Fix the PDF first

If the pages of your PDF are an odd size (for example a phone screenshot or a page scanned without cropping), use Resize PDF Pages to put each page on A4 before printing. For two sides of an ID card on one sheet at true size, use the ID Card 2-in-1 tool.

Open Resize PDF Pages →

More help: all guides · all tools.

Written by ScanifyAI Documentation Team ([email protected]) · November 2026