How to print a PDF at actual size

Choose Actual size or a scale of 100%, and pick the paper the PDF was made for: US Letter or A4. Fit to page and Fit to printable area resize the sheet, which on most home printers makes it slightly smaller.

Adobe Acrobat or Reader

Print, then under Page Sizing & Handling choose Size and select Actual size.

Chrome, Edge or a Chromebook

Print, open More settings and set Scale to Custom, 100 (Edge may call it Actual size). Not Fit to printable area.

Preview on a Mac

File, Print. Click Show Details if the options are hidden, choose Scale and type 100%, not Scale to Fit.

iPhone or iPad

Open the PDF, tap Share, then Print. Choose the paper size if your printer offers it. There is no scale setting, so check one sheet first.

Android

Open the PDF, open its menu and tap Print. Choose your printer and the paper size that matches the PDF. If a fit or scale option appears, choose Actual size or 100%.

Why sheets print small

Most home printers cannot print the last few millimetres at each edge of the paper. Fit to page and Fit to printable area resize the whole sheet to the area the printer can reach: a full-size page on paper of the same size usually comes out slightly smaller, and a smaller page can come out larger. Either is enough to put a ruler, graph paper or a planner page off size. Shrink oversized pages reduces only a page that is larger than the paper and leaves a smaller page as it is.

Actual size prints at 100% and leaves blank whatever falls in the printer’s edge. EveryPrintable sheets keep their content back from the edge at their default margins, but printers differ in how much they leave blank: if you narrow the margin, or a sheet prints to the edge, print one page first and check that nothing is cut off.

A Letter page on a printer that cannot reach the outer ¼ inch of each edge, shaded (drawn wider here so it shows). Actual size prints the page at 100% and leaves that edge blank. Fit to printable area shrinks the whole page to fit inside it, here to 94%, so the 50 mm square prints at about 47 mm.

Match the paper size

Choose the same paper in the print dialog as the PDF: US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) or A4 (210 × 297 mm). A Letter PDF printed on A4 is cut at the sides or shrunk to fit, and an A4 PDF printed on Letter is cut at the top and bottom or shrunk. Almost every EveryPrintable sheet lets you choose Letter or A4 before you download, so make the one that matches your paper. The planner size cheat sheet is the exception: it is made on A3 so its largest outlines print at actual size.

Check it printed right

Print the 50 mm square from the print size checker with the same settings, measure it with a ruler and enter what you measured. The checker tells you the percentage your printer used: 50 mm is 100%, and 47 mm means the sheet was reduced to 94%.

Check your print size →

If it still prints the wrong size

Some printers apply their own scaling after the print dialog. Look there next.

From the print dialog, open the printer’s Properties or Preferences and turn off Fit to page, Scale to fit or Borderless. Borderless printing enlarges the page slightly.
Check that the paper size in the printer settings matches the paper in the tray.
At a copy shop, ask for 100% with no fit to page.

Print at a shop →Print from a phone →

Planner pages smaller than the paper

To print A5 pages on A4 or Half Letter pages on Letter, do not shrink a full-size PDF in the print dialog. Make the refill at its finished size in the refill builder, choose the paper you print on, and print that PDF at Actual size. The builder places each page at its true size and adds trim marks where they fit.

Open the refill builder →Print A5 on A4 →