Globally Compatible Page Sizes

“Global page sizes” fit perfectly in both US and Metric paper sizes—without scaling.

If you or your collaborators use both US and Metric paper sizes, and you want to be able to print your proof documents, you should consider using these Globally Compatible page sizes. They’re a tiny bit smaller than the standard ones you currently use, but they print at 100% scale regardless of using a US or Metric paper size.

There are 2 Globally Compatible page sizes that are most useful for typeface design:

US Letter A4 A3 Tabloid Regular Large

Global Regular

Fits both A4 and US Letter without needing to shrink
11in × 8.27in    279.4mm × 210mm    792pt × 595.28pt (ok to round to 595pt)
11 inches × 210 millimeters — the 11in “long side” of US Letter and the 210mm “short side” of A4
Only 0.23in shorter than US Letter and 17.6mm shorter than A4

Global Large

Fits both A3 and Tabloid without needing to shrink
16.54in × 11in    420mm × 279.4mm    1190.55pt × 792pt (ok to round to 1191pt)
420 millimeters × 11 inches — the 420mm “long side” of A3 and the 11in “short side” of Tabloid
Only 0.46in shorter than US Letter and 17.6mm shorter than A3

The Problem & Solution

Most of the world uses millimeters and page sizes like A4, while the United States, Mexico, and Canada typically use inches and page sizes like Letter (8.5 × 11) and Tabloid.

A4 and US Letter are very similar in size, and so are A3 and Tabloid. But if you print an A4 document/PDF on a printer with US Letter paper, the document must be scaled down to fit. The same is true for a Letter document on A4 paper, and also true for A3 and Tabloid.

Shrinking a document/design isn’t a big deal for most people, but for type designers evaluating a proof document it is problematic. We need to know that a 12pt font size really is 12pt.

Globally Compatible page sizes solve this by using the dimensions of the overlapping area between similar page sizes. So you can set your design’s page/paper/artboard size to the “Global Regular” dimensions and it will print at 100% scale on both A4 and US Letter.

Your design (and font sizes) will be the correct size on both paper sizes.