Choose paper size, font and margins

Choose the paper your reader will use

A4 is 210 × 297 mm. Letter is 8.5 × 11 inches. Both are ordinary office sizes, but they have different proportions. Letter is wider and shorter than A4, so the same text can wrap differently and produce a different page count.

Use the size your recipient or printer expects. If you are sending a digital attachment and neither size is required, choose one and review the result. Changing the paper does not scale a finished image; the converter lays out the text again within the new page dimensions.

Begin with a readable combination

The default is A4, a sans serif font, 12 pt text and 0.75-inch margins. It is a useful starting point for ordinary notes or handouts. There are three font choices: sans serif, serif and monospace. Monospace gives each character the same advance, which can help plain-text lists stay aligned. It is not a table layout engine.

1. Choose A4 or Letter before adjusting the other settings.
2. Start with 12 pt. Increase the size if the document will be read at a distance or printed as a handout.
3. Choose Standard margins for general notes, or Wide margins if readers need space for annotations.
4. Create the preview and inspect a page with a long paragraph as well as the final page.

Try this sample

A short handout

Use one paper size throughout.
Keep the body text comfortable to read.
Leave room around the edges.

Understand the four margin choices

Narrow margins are 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) on each side. Standard margins are 0.75 inches (19.05 mm). Wide margins are 1 inch (25.4 mm), and Extra wide margins are 1.5 inches (38.1 mm). The top, bottom, left and right margins all use the same chosen value.

A wider margin reduces both line length and the number of lines per page. Increasing font size also uses more room. For example, a long note at 24 pt with Extra wide margins may need many more pages than the same note at 12 pt with Standard margins. There is no fixed page-count promise because the actual characters and line breaks matter.

The tool allows sizes from 8 to 24 pt. Small text fits more words on a page, but page count alone is a poor reason to make a document hard to read. If you exceed the 100-page limit, reduce the size or margins only as far as your readers can comfortably use; otherwise split the document.

Check the printed result

The on-screen preview displays the actual PDF bytes that the download uses. It helps you check wraps and page breaks. Its apparent size depends on your screen; a phone preview is not a physical-size print proof.

In your PDF reader’s print dialog, confirm the chosen paper size and inspect any Fit or Actual size setting. A printer can scale the PDF to a different sheet, even when the PDF itself is correct. Printer hardware also has its own printable area.

This converter supports A4 and Letter only. It does not produce custom book trim sizes, bleed, crop marks, columns, running headers or page numbering. For those requirements, use publishing software and check the printer’s specification.

Sources and related checks

The settings, supported characters and size limits above describe this converter. For the underlying technical behavior, see:

• pdf-lib PDFPage: page dimensions and drawing coordinates

• Turn a long note into a multi-page PDF
• Check that your PDF text is searchable

Try it in the converter