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Why don't PDF's print at the same size as the original?

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Summary: When a PDF is printed, even though it may be standard sized pages, the printer may add margins. You can adjust this behavior when you print.

Why do my PDF's print out smaller than the original copy?

I'm going to assume you mean slightly smaller, since that's a very, very common scenario. I see it myself all the time.

The answer, in a word, is margins. And depending on the PDF document and the capabilities of your printer, you may, or may not, be able to work around it.

Most PDF documents are intended to be a representation of an equivalent paper document. That means that they're typically sized as if they were paper. That means they usually represent a paper size 8.5 by 11 inches (or perhaps A4 sized paper in Europe).

A typical PDF ebook page.

When you view the document in a PDF reader, it provides a view on those series of pages, but they're still conceptually pages.

"Most PDF documents are intended to be a representation of an equivalent paper document."

Now, when you print your document, it would seem logical that an 8-1/2 x 11 page would print just fine on an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper. Sadly, that's typically not the case.

The problem is that most printers cannot actually print on the entire sheet of paper. There's a "margin" around the outer edge that will vary depending on the printer. It's usually around 1/4 inch (but I must emphasize that this varies greatly depending on the printer). The upshot is that a printer will only be able to print on an area somewhat smaller than the full 8-1/2 x 11.

Printable Area of a Page

Now, when printing there are two choices:

  • You can print your 8-1/2 x 11 document directly on to the 8-1/2 x 11 paper, and risk cutting off from view the edges of whatever is presented in the PDF.

  • You can resize the 8-1/2 x 11 document down to a size that will actually fit entirely in the printable area of the paper.

The later is the most common default, and it's likely exactly what you're seeing.

A typical PDF ebook page. Full page resized slightly to fit in printable area
Before and after - ever so slightly smaller to fit in printable area.

The thing to look for in your PDF viewer is "Zoom" or "Page Scaling":

File Print Dialog in Adobe Acrobat Reader

As you can see the default is "Fit to Printable Area", exactly as I've described. (And you can see a "Zoom" of 97% has been applied just under the preview.)

Now, the example page I'm using would actually print just fine without being resized smaller (since it actually has margins of its own).

Simply change the "Fit to Printable Area" to "None", you'll see the "Zoom" disappear or reset to 100%, and the PDF reader will attempt no scaling - it'll just print the 8 1/2 x 11 document onto 8 1/2 x 11 paper. If there's clipping because of the printer margins, so be it.

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Article C3604 - December 28, 2008

Recent Comments
4 Comments

Nice explanation, Leo. I print a lot of ebooks and sometimes I need to 'put' more on the page. I mean make it more readable. This article helps me with this issue. I'll work with this and I always can print just one page and see the results.
thanks Leo
joseph

Posted by: Joseph at December 30, 2008 8:18 AM

Thanks for the answer to,"Why Don't PDF's Print At Same Size As Original?" It's a real aggravation to print from A PDF and the print comes out so small you can barely read it. I just rescaled my page to "none" and it worked beautifully.We struggle with these little things and it doesn't occur to us sometimes to just "Ask Leo!" Mary Ann

Posted by: Mary Ann at December 30, 2008 9:37 AM

I am sending a .pdf document by email for a company to print. They just called and told me the first two letters in each row are cut. Since I have no access to their printers, how can I change my document from my end?
Thanks!

You'll have to adjust the margins when you create the PDF.
- Leo
13-Jan-2009

Posted by: Gwen at January 12, 2009 2:20 PM

Thanks for the article. Unfortunately, even with the page scaling set to "none" I'm still having documents print out smaller than the originals (converted from Word 2000 with PrimoPDF). I know that my printer can handle the necessary area (I can print the document from Word with no problems at all) so I'm totally baffled as to why printing the pdf version causes it to shrink.

It's really very odd.

Posted by: Bert Coules at November 12, 2009 12:59 PM

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