How to Make a PDF Fill A4 When Printing?

When you print a receipt, a design sketch, or a non-standard scan, you often get a big white margin all around — or the content shrinks. The cause is almost always "source size ≠ A4." Here are the key options in your print settings.

Why the printed margins are so large

Printers default to "actual size." If the source PDF is A5, Letter, or any custom size, it naturally leaves white space on A4 paper. The fix is to scale the content to fit the A4 frame.

The two key options in the print dialog

Choosing "Fit" in the print dialog scales the content proportionally into A4 — safe, no cropping. "Actual size" prints at the original dimensions and can clip the edges if too large. For a full-bleed page with no margins, prefer "Fit", or a dedicated "Fill" mode.

A more reliable method: convert to A4 locally, losslessly

Virtual printing rasterizes vector text, so the exported PDF is no longer text-selectable. UniPagePDF's A4 export runs locally in your browser and offers both "Fit" (keeps reasonable margins, no cropping) and "Fill" (content fills the entire A4) modes, while keeping text selectable and searchable. See the step-by-step: How to force a PDF page to fill A4 paper.