There is nothing more annoying than cutting out a pattern, stitching it up, and finding your card holder is a few millimetres too small for a card. Nine times out of ten the pattern was fine. The printer shrank it.
Most printers and PDF viewers are set to “Fit to page” by default. That scales the whole sheet down slightly so nothing falls in the margins, which is fine for a letter and useless for a pattern. Here is how to make sure you print at true size.
Step 1: Choose “Actual size” or 100%
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (Windows or Mac): in the Print window, under Page Size & Handling, choose Actual size.
- Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome: open the PDF, press Print, open More settings and set Scale to Custom: 100 (not “Fit to page”).
- Mac Preview: in the Print window, set Scale to 100%.
- iPhone, iPad and Android: phone printing often scales to fit. If your print comes out small, open the PDF on a computer instead, or look for a scale or “fit” option in your printer’s own app.
Step 2: Use the right paper
Our free patterns are drawn on A4. If you print on US Letter, which is shorter, choose Actual size and the pieces will still fit; only the footer at the very bottom may be cut off. Never let the printer squeeze the page to fit Letter.
Step 3: Measure the test square
Every pattern we publish has a 30 mm square on it. Measure it with a steel rule before you do anything else. If it is 30 mm, you are good to go. If it is 29 mm or 31 mm, go back to step 1: something in the print settings is still scaling.
A ruler is more accurate than a tape measure for this. Line the zero mark up with the inside edge of the line, not the outside.
Step 4: Transfer the pattern
Paper patterns wear out fast. For anything you will make more than once, glue the printout to card or thin plastic and cut that out as a template. Mark the stitch holes with a scratch awl or wing divider, then use your pricking iron along the line.
Skipping the printer altogether
If you have a laser cutter or a Cricut, you can skip printing and cut straight from the PDF. Laser-Ready DXF turns a PDF pattern into a clean DXF or SVG at exactly the right size, joins broken lines and strips out page borders and text, so the only thing your machine cuts is the pattern.