Letter vs A4: Sizes, What Gets Cut Off, and Which to Use

We printed both sizes to PDF and set the same text on each to measure what that difference does to a document: how many more words A4 holds, how many pixels each needs, and what gets cut off when one is printed on the other.

Letter vs A4 side by side

We read the point sizes off PDFs that Google Chrome printed at each size on 11 Oct 2026: Letter came out at 612 x 792 points, and A4 at 596 x 842 points (210.2 x 297.0 mm; Chrome rounds A4 to a whole screen pixel). Legal paper, for comparison, came out at 612 x 1008 points: the same width as Letter and 3 inches taller.

How many more words fit on A4?

We set two real public documents in the same font, size and 1 inch margins on both papers and counted the words that fit. Single spaced:

A4 held 1% to 7% more words single spaced (0.6% to 6.8% across all 8 fonts we tested). Double spaced, it ranged from 3% fewer to 9% more, because a few big lines either fit or don't. Its text area with 1 inch margins is about 4% larger, but because A4 is narrower, each line holds slightly fewer words; the extra lines at the bottom more than make up for it. The full table for 8 fonts is in how many words fit on one page.

What gets cut off when you print on the other size

An A4 document printed on Letter at actual size loses the bottom 17.6 mm (about 0.7 inch). That is usually the footer, the page number, or the last line of a table.

A Letter document printed on A4 at actual size loses 5.9 mm of width (about a quarter inch), split between the two sides if it is centered. With 1 inch margins nothing is lost. With narrow margins, the edges of a full-width banner or chart can be clipped.

If the printer is set to fit the page instead, nothing is cut, but everything shrinks:

• A4 on Letter is scaled to about 94%, so 11 pt type prints at about 10.3 pt.
• Letter on A4 is scaled to about 97%, so 11 pt type prints at about 10.7 pt.

Both are readable. The only visible sign is a little extra white margin on the paper.

Designing a One-Pager that prints on both

If your document will cross an ocean, design for the area the two papers share: 210 mm wide and 279.4 mm tall (8.27 x 11 inches). Keep anything that must not be cut, like the title, totals and the contact line, at least 15 mm (0.6 inch) inside each edge.

Edit this template

A One-Pager laid out in blocks with a clear margin: it fits Letter or A4 without losing a line.

In MakeOnepagers, every One-Pager can switch between US Letter and A4 before you download it, and the layout is refitted to the new size rather than stretched. That is the fastest way to send the same document to a US client and a UK one.

Which should you use?

Make it once, send it in either size

Start from one of the MakeOnepagers templates and switch between Letter and A4 before you download, or drop your document into the free AI One-Pager generator to get a One-Pager that fits either. Your first One-Pager is free with the AI One-Pager Generator, no account needed.