Help / Printing
Print a PDF at actual size, not "fit to page"
Most print dialogs shrink a PDF a little by default. On a planner that means the lines you wanted at a certain height are a bit shorter. On a certificate it means the frame sits closer to the edge on one side than the other. One setting fixes it.
What "fit to page" actually does
A Letter sheet is 8.5 by 11 inches. A home printer cannot put ink right up to the edge of the paper. Most inkjets keep a strip of about an eighth of an inch clear on the sides and top, and up to half an inch at the bottom, where the rollers hold the page. So the area the printer can reach is a little smaller than the paper.
"Fit to page" takes the whole 8.5 by 11 design and scales it down until it fits inside that reachable area. On the printers we have measured that comes out somewhere between 95 and 97 percent. Three to five percent does not sound like much. It is enough to move every margin, shorten every ruled line, and put a border that was meant to sit half an inch from the paper's edge at nearly three quarters of an inch on one side. If you fold the sheet, the fold no longer lands where the design put it.
Our templates are drawn with a half-inch safe margin on every edge for exactly this reason. Nothing important sits in the strip a home printer cannot reach. So there is nothing to fit. Print at 100 percent and the sheet comes out as designed.
Where the setting is
The wording changes from app to app. You are looking for "Actual size", "100%", or a scale box you can type 100 into. Here is where it hides in the apps most people print from. These were checked on current versions in September 2026; menus move, so if yours looks different, look for the same words.
| App | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Preview (Mac) | File, then Print. If the dialog is small, click "Show Details". Under the page picture, choose Scale and type 100. If "Scale to Fit" is selected, switch it off. |
| Acrobat Reader | File, then Print. Under Page Sizing & Handling, choose Actual size. "Fit" is the default, and it is the one to avoid. |
| Chrome | Print, then More settings. Set Scale to Default or choose Custom and type 100. Also make sure Paper size matches the paper in the tray. |
| Edge | Print, then More settings. Set Scale to Actual size. |
| Windows, Photos or the built-in PDF viewer | Look for Fit in the print panel and change it to Actual size, or open the file in Acrobat Reader or Edge instead, where the control is easier to find. |
| A phone | Open the PDF, tap share or the three dots, then Print. Some phone print sheets show a Scale row; many do not, and then the phone fits to page on its own. If there is no scale control, send the file to a computer and print from there. It is the surest route. |
How to check with a ruler
Every free version of our templates carries a one-inch mark in the bottom corner. Print the sheet, put a ruler on that mark, and read it. If it measures one inch, the print is at actual size and everything else on the page is right too. If it measures a bit under an inch, the dialog scaled the page. Go back and find the setting above.
The paid version does not carry the mark, because it is your certificate or your invoice and nobody wants a ruler on it. Test with the free file first. It is the same design.
When the printer still crops the edge
Occasionally a print at 100 percent loses a sliver at the bottom. That is the printer's own margin at work, not the scaling. Two things to check. First, the paper size in the dialog should match the paper in the tray; a Letter file on A4 paper, or the reverse, clips or leaves a strip no matter what the scale is. Which paper you have, and why it matters covers that. Second, some printers have a "borderless" mode that enlarges the page on purpose so it can bleed off the edge. Turn it off for our sheets; they are not designed to bleed.
If the sliver is still there after both, the printer's bottom margin is larger than half an inch. That is rare, and it is not something a setting will fix. Our templates keep everything that matters inside the half-inch line, so what you lose is empty paper.