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Letter Printer Test Page
8.5 × 11 inches — 215.9 × 279.4 mm. Wider and shorter than A4, and printing A4 artwork on it is the single most common cause of a test page that looks wrong for no real reason.
Set scaling to 100%. Choose Actual Size in the print dialog, never Fit to page — scaling distorts every measurement on this sheet. The Download PDF button hands you that same sheet as a ready-made file, so there is no scaling decision to get wrong.
How to print the Letter Printer Test Page
- Load plain white Letter and push the guides against the stack.
- Choose Letter in the paper size control on this page.
- In the print dialog set paper size to Letter and scaling to Actual Size.
- Choose Best or High quality with colour mode enabled.
- Print and let the ink settle for half a minute.
- Compare the reference circle against the printed dimensions.
Reading the result
| The page fills the sheet with even margins | Correct paper size and correct scaling. Anything you can see now is a printer fault. |
| A strip of white runs along the bottom | A4 artwork fitted to Letter. The sheet is scaled down, so every measurement is now wrong. |
| Side margins are wider than the top and bottom | Letter loaded while A4 is selected in the driver. Set the driver to Letter. |
| Marks near the edge are clipped | The tray guides are loose or the tray holds a different size to the setting. |
| Geometry is correct but detail is soft | Print quality, not size. Switch to Best or High before deciding. |
Also check
- Alignment page — Letter is wider than A4, so it is the better sheet for spotting left-to-right skew across the full carriage travel.
- Nozzle check — A Letter sheet printed at true scale tells you whether gaps are real or an artefact of an A4 drawing being resized.
- Gradient and banding page — Banding is easier to judge on Letter because the sweep is longer and repeats more nozzles across a single pass.
Related test pages
- Paper sizes printer test page — A test page only measures your printer if the sheet matches the paper in the tray. Choose the size you actually load and the geometry on the page stays true.
- Nozzle Check printer test page — A nozzle check is the fastest way to find out whether an inkjet printhead has clogged nozzles. Print this page and read the gaps.
- Alignment printer test page — If lines that should be straight come out crooked, or text looks doubled, the printhead is out of alignment. This sheet measures it.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my printer cut off the bottom of the page?
Because A4 is taller than Letter and the driver has to remove something to make it fit. Print the Letter version of any test instead of resizing the A4 one — cropping removes exactly the marks near the paper edge that measure feed behaviour.
Is Letter the same as A4 at a different scale?
No, and the difference is not uniform. Letter is about six millimetres wider and eighteen millimetres shorter. Scaling one onto the other stretches horizontally and compresses vertically at the same time, which is why circles come out oval rather than simply smaller.
Can I print Letter on A4 paper?
Physically yes, but the result is not useful: Letter is wider than A4, so the driver must shrink the job and the geometry no longer describes real dimensions. Load Letter stock for any dimensional test.
Does duplex printing affect the test result?
Print one side only. On a duplex job the sheet travels through the paper path twice, and the second pass can shift registration between the two faces by a fraction of a millimetre — a real but irrelevant difference when you are measuring front-face geometry. If you do need to check both faces, print the same page on each side and compare the two circles against each other rather than against the printed dimension. Single-sided sheets are the reference for every measurement on this page, and they also remove one more variable when you are trying to decide whether a problem is the printer or the paper.
Why does the print preview look smaller than the sheet?
Preview windows are usually fitted to the screen, so a Letter sheet appears as a small portrait rectangle — that is the display, not the print. What matters in the preview is where the marks sit relative to the sheet edge: if the artwork lands inside a border you did not expect, the driver is about to scale or clip it. Look for a fit percentage or an Actual size option and set it before printing. Trust the sheet once it is out, not the window in front of you, and compare the reference circle against a ruler rather than against the preview.