How to resize PDF pages to A4 or Letter
Updated
Contents
To resize the pages of a PDF, open Resize PDF, add your file, and pick the new page size: A4, US Letter, US Legal, A3, or A5, or a custom width and height. Choose Scale content to fit so nothing is cut off, press Resize PDF, and download the copy.
The usual reason is paper. A document laid out on US Letter has to print on A4 in most of the world, or the other way round, and a printer left to sort it out may cut the edges off or shrink the page by its own rules. Resizing the file settles the size once, for every printer and reader.
It runs in your browser, so your PDF stays on your device. It opens one file at a time, up to 100 MB.
Step by step
- 1Open the Resize PDF tool and drop your PDF where it says Drop your PDF here, or click browse. It stays on your device.
- 2Under New page size, pick A4, US Letter, US Legal, A3, or A5, or pick Custom and type a Width and Height in pt, mm, or in.
- 3Under Orientation, keep Match each page so each page stays portrait or landscape as it was, or choose Portrait or Landscape for every page.
- 4Under How to resize, choose Scale content to fit or Change canvas only.
- 5Under Pages, keep All pages, or choose Selected pages and type a list such as 1-3, 5.
- 6Press Resize PDF, then Download resized PDF. The copy is named after yours, with -resized added.
Scale the content, or change only the canvas
Scale content to fit gives each page the new size and scales what is on it, up or down, to fit inside, centred and with its proportions kept, so nothing is cut off and nothing is stretched. When the old and new shapes differ, a blank band appears at two opposite edges.
Change canvas only keeps the content at the size it was and moves the page edges around it, centred. A bigger size adds blank margin, which leaves room for binding, hole punching or notes. A smaller size hides whatever falls outside the new edges; it is hidden, not deleted, much as Crop PDF hides it.
US Letter to A4, and back
A4 is a little narrower and taller than US Letter. Scaled to fit, a US Letter page shrinks slightly to the new width and gains a thin blank band at the top and bottom; an A4 page made US Letter shrinks to the new height and gains bands at the left and right. Either way every line stays on the page.
A page that a reader shows turned, such as one rotated in Rotate PDF, gets the new size the way it is shown, so a landscape page becomes a landscape A4 page with Match each page. A custom size can be anything from 1 to 200 inches on each side.
What resizing keeps
Text stays text and images are not re-compressed: the page's own drawing is kept and only drawn at a different size, so nothing turns blurry. With Scale content to fit, links, comments and form fields move and scale with the content, so they stay on the words they belong to.
If what you want is a smaller file rather than a smaller page, use Compress PDF. To fit several pages onto one sheet of paper, use Multiple Pages per Sheet; to trim white margins off the pages, use Crop PDF.
Common questions
How do I change a PDF from Letter to A4?
Open the file, pick A4 under New page size, keep Match each page and Scale content to fit, and press Resize PDF. The content shrinks slightly to fit the narrower page, so nothing is cut off when it prints.
Will resizing cut off the edges of my pages?
Not with Scale content to fit: the content is scaled to fit inside the new page. With Change canvas only and a smaller size, what falls outside the new edges is hidden, though it is still in the file.
Will the text get blurry?
No. Text and drawings stay sharp and images are not re-encoded; the page is only drawn at a different size, the way a printer's fit-to-page setting does it. Scaling a page down does make small text smaller.
Can I resize only some pages?
Yes. Under Pages choose Selected pages and type the pages, such as 2, 4-6. The pages you leave out keep their size, so the copy can mix sizes.
Is my PDF sent to a server to resize it?
No. The pages are resized in your browser tab and the copy is saved on your device; the PDF is not sent to pdf.xyz.