How to print a photo, template or plan at its exact real size

Why prints come out the wrong size

There are three usual reasons:

• The print dialog shrinks the page. “Fit to page”, “Shrink to fit” or “Fit to printable area” rescales everything by a few percent.
• The image has no real size. A photo is just pixels. Unless someone tells the software how many centimetres it should cover, the result is a guess.
• The printer is slightly off. Many printers stretch or squeeze a page by a millimetre or two over 10 cm.

The fix is to make a PDF that already has the right size and to print it at 100%.

Step 1: set the size you want

Open Print at exact size and add your image. There are two ways to set its size:

• Type it. Enter the exact width or height in millimetres, centimetres or inches. Use this when you know the target size, for example a 12 cm wide photo.
• Set size by measuring. Click two points on something in the picture whose real length you know — a ruler, an A4 sheet, a coin, a door — and type that length. Toola scales the whole picture so that distance is exact. This is the easiest way to print a photographed object, pattern or plan at 1:1.

Photographing something to scale

If you plan to use “Set size by measuring”, the photo matters:

• Put a ruler or a sheet of A4 flat next to the object, in the same plane — not on top of it, not behind it.
• Shoot straight down from above. A tilted camera makes one end of the object look smaller than the other.
• Step back and zoom in a little instead of coming close with a wide lens. Wide lenses stretch the edges of the picture.
• Keep the object and the ruler near the middle of the frame.

If your photo has a lot of empty space around the object, crop it first with Crop image so the final print is easier to place.

Step 2: print without scaling

Download the PDF and open the print dialog. Look for the scaling option and choose Actual size, 100% or No scaling. The names depend on the program:

• In Adobe Reader, choose “Actual size” under Page Sizing & Handling.
• In Chrome or Edge, set Scale to “Default” (100%), not “Fit to printable area”.
• On Mac Preview, set Scale to 100%.

Printers cannot print to the very edge of the paper. The PDF already leaves a margin, so the picture itself stays at its real size.

Step 3: check it with a ruler

Do not trust the print until you have measured it. Lay a ruler on the page and check a long distance. If you need a reference, Printable ruler prints a ruler and a bank-card outline: put a real card on the outline and it should fit exactly.

If the print is a millimetre or two off, measure the 10 cm test square and enter the result under “Printer prints slightly too small or large?” in Print at exact size. Toola corrects the next print for that printer.

When it is bigger than one sheet

A table-top template, a stencil or a poster will not fit on A4. Make it any size and Toola splits it across as many sheets as needed, with an adjustable overlap, dashed glue lines and sheet labels (A1, A2, B1…). Cut along the lines, tape the sheets together in order and you have the full-size picture. Poster printer starts with this layout already set up.

Check the print resolution Toola shows. From about 150 DPI upwards a picture looks sharp at reading distance; lower numbers mean it is being enlarged beyond its detail.

Frequently asked questions