Why your PDF prints at the wrong size, and how to fix it

A PDF carries a page size in points, and printers apply their own scaling on top. When those disagree, you get shrunken pages with wide borders, or content cut off at the edge.

The usual culprit: fit to page

Most print dialogs default to something like "Fit" or "Shrink oversized pages". That silently scales your document, which matters enormously for anything size critical, such as passport photos, ID cards or technical drawings. Choose "Actual size" or 100 percent instead.

Page size mismatch

A4 is 210 by 297 mm and US Letter is 216 by 279 mm. Neither fits inside the other, so printing an A4 document on Letter paper either crops the bottom or shrinks everything. If the recipient is in North America, produce Letter. If they are in India, Europe or most of the rest of the world, produce A4. The Paper Size Chart lists both in millimetres, inches and pixels.

Margins that do not print

Most printers cannot print to the very edge, typically reserving 3 to 5 mm. Content in that zone disappears. If your PDF has content close to the edge, Crop PDF can trim the page so the printer's own margin does not eat into it.

Saving paper on long documents

Multiple Pages per Sheet places two, four, six or nine pages on one sheet with thin borders. For a long report that will be skimmed in a meeting, it halves or quarters the stack.

For photographs, work out the size before printing with the Print Size Calculator, which shows how large an image can go at 300, 240 and 150 DPI.