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PDF page sizes explained: A4, Letter and more

By DeckleUpdated

The two page sizes you meet most in PDFs are A4, 210 × 297 mm, used almost everywhere outside North America, and US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches, used in the United States, Canada and parts of Latin America. A4 is narrower and taller than Letter. When you build a PDF from photos in JPG to PDF, choose Fit inside A4 under Page size for a printable A4 document, or Match each image to make each page the size of its picture.

JPG to PDF
Illustrated report, proposal and notes beside a numbered page sequence.
Illustration · choose the pages and order for your reader.

Common PDF page sizes

PDF measures pages in points, 72 to the inch. Viewers usually show the size in inches or millimetres in the document properties.

Size Millimetres Inches PDF points Where it is used
A3 297 × 420 11.69 × 16.54 842 × 1191 Posters, drawings, spreadsheets
A4 210 × 297 8.27 × 11.69 595 × 842 Letters, reports, forms worldwide
A5 148 × 210 5.83 × 8.27 420 × 595 Booklets, flyers, notebooks
US Letter 216 × 279 8.5 × 11 612 × 792 Letters and reports in North America
US Legal 216 × 356 8.5 × 14 612 × 1008 Legal and real-estate documents in the US
Tabloid 279 × 432 11 × 17 792 × 1224 Newsletters, large charts

Each A size is half of the one above: two A4 sheets side by side make an A3, and an A4 folded in half is A5. That makes A sizes easy to scale up or down without changing the proportions. Letter and Legal do not follow that rule.

A4 vs Letter: what actually changes

A4 is about 6 mm narrower and 18 mm taller than Letter. That small difference causes most page-size problems:

  • Printing A4 on Letter paper cuts off the bottom or shrinks the page slightly, depending on the printer's "fit to page" setting.
  • Printing Letter on A4 paper leaves a wider margin at the bottom and can clip the sides.
  • Forms designed for one size can have fields or signature lines near the edge that disappear on the other.

If you are sending a document to another country, ask which paper they print on. When in doubt, the printer's "Fit to page" or "Scale to fit" option prints a page on either size without cutting anything off.

How to check the page size of a PDF

  1. Open the PDF in your viewer.
  2. Open the document properties; most desktop viewers, including Adobe Acrobat Reader, list the page size there.
  3. Check the page you care about. A PDF can have different sizes on different pages.

Mixed sizes are normal in combined files: an A4 report with an A3 fold-out, or a merged PDF where one file was Letter. Merge PDFs keeps each page at its own size.

How to make an A4 PDF from photos

  1. Open JPG to PDF and choose your images, or drop them onto the page.
  2. Under Page size, choose Fit inside A4. Large images shrink to fit; smaller ones stay centred.
  3. Under Orientation, choose Portrait or Landscape.
  4. Under Margin in points, choose None, Narrow (18 pt, a quarter inch) or Standard (36 pt, half an inch).
  5. Choose Create PDF and download the file.

Choose Match each image instead when the PDF is for screen viewing and you want no white borders. Each page then takes the size of its photo, so pages can differ.

Example: you photograph a 3-page signed contract with your phone to email to a solicitor in London. Choose Fit inside A4, Portrait and Narrow. The solicitor's office can print it on standard A4 paper without anything being cut off.

Page size and image export

When you turn a PDF page into an image, the page size and the resolution decide the pixel size. An A4 page at 150 DPI is about 1240 × 1754 pixels; a Letter page is about 1275 × 1650. Calculating pixels from DPI has the full table.

Tips

  • Match the recipient's paper. A4 for most of the world, Letter for the US and Canada.
  • Use Fit to page when printing across sizes. It avoids clipped edges.
  • Leave a margin for printed forms. Most office printers cannot print to the very edge of the sheet.
  • Keep fold-outs as their own pages. An A3 page in an A4 report prints correctly on A3 or scaled to A4.

Frequently asked questions

Is A4 bigger than Letter?

A4 is taller but narrower. Letter is wider but shorter. The areas are almost the same.

What size is a standard PDF?

There is no single standard. Most PDFs are A4 or US Letter, depending on where they were made.

Can JPG to PDF make Letter-size pages?

No. JPG to PDF offers Fit inside A4 or Match each image. For Letter paper, print the A4 PDF with "Fit to page".

Why does my PDF print with the bottom cut off?

It is probably A4 printed on Letter paper. Turn on your printer's "Fit to page" option.

Related tools

  • JPG to PDF to build A4 pages from photos
  • Merge PDFs to combine files that use different page sizes
  • PDF to PNG to export pages as images at a known pixel size

Sources