Letter vs A4 vs Legal vs Tabloid: Which Size to Print
Letter suits desk and fridge calendars, A4 is the same job everywhere outside North America, Legal adds three inches of height for taller date cells, and Tabloid 11x17 roughly doubles the writing area for wall calendars. Choose the size before generating, not after.
The four sizes at a glance
| Size | Inches | Millimetres | Area vs Letter | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | 8.5 × 11 | 216 × 279 | 100% | Desk, fridge, binder, handouts |
| A4 | 8.27 × 11.69 | 210 × 297 | 103% | Everything Letter does, outside North America |
| Legal | 8.5 × 14 | 216 × 356 | 127% | Taller date cells, rotas, long agendas |
| Tabloid | 11 × 17 | 279 × 432 | 200% | Wall calendars, command centres, shared boards |
Area is the number that matters for a calendar, because the extra space goes into the date squares rather than the margins. Tabloid gives twice the area of Letter, and almost all of that increase lands where you write.
Letter and A4 are not interchangeable
Letter is 216 by 279 millimetres. A4 is 210 by 297. A4 is 6 mm narrower and 18 mm taller. Printing a Letter-designed calendar on A4 leaves a wider gap at the bottom; printing an A4 design on Letter risks clipping the footer or forces the printer to scale.
The two standards come from different systems. A4 belongs to the ISO 216 series, where each size is exactly half the previous one and every sheet has the same 1:1.414 proportion. Letter is a North American convention with no such relationship, which is why A3 is exactly two A4 sheets but Tabloid is not quite two Letters.
The generators here compose the page at whichever size you choose, so neither size is a scaled version of the other.
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When Legal is the right answer
Legal keeps the width of Letter and adds three inches of height. On a monthly grid those three inches are divided across five or six week rows, giving each row roughly half an inch more depth. That is often the difference between one line of writing per day and two.
It also fits most home printer trays, which Tabloid does not. If Letter squares feel cramped and a copy shop trip is not worth it, Legal is the practical middle step.
When Tabloid earns the trip to a print shop
A Tabloid month has date cells roughly the size of a business card. For a household calendar carrying four people's commitments, or a classroom calendar that has to be read from the back row, nothing smaller works as well.
Most consumer inkjets cannot feed 11 by 17 inch paper. Office multifunction copiers and every copy shop can. Printing one sheet a month is inexpensive, and a single Tabloid wall calendar usually replaces several smaller printouts.
A3, at 297 by 420 mm, is the closest international equivalent. It is slightly narrower and slightly taller than Tabloid, and a Tabloid PDF printed on A3 with fit-to-page looks essentially identical.
How to decide in one question
Ask how far away the calendar will be read from. Arm's length means Letter or A4. Across a desk or a small kitchen means Legal. Across a room means Tabloid.
The second question is who writes on it. One person can live with small squares because they know what their own shorthand means. A shared calendar needs room for full words, which pushes the size up.
Frequently asked questions
- Is A4 bigger than Letter?
- A4 has about 3% more area. It is 6 mm narrower and 18 mm taller than US Letter.
- Is Tabloid the same as Ledger?
- Yes, they are the same 11 by 17 inch sheet. Tabloid conventionally refers to portrait and Ledger to landscape.
- Can I print a Tabloid calendar on Letter paper?
- Yes, with fit-to-page enabled, but you lose the extra writing room that made Tabloid worth choosing. Generate at Letter instead for a properly composed page.
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