How to resize a PDF on iPhone for print

You have a PDF on your phone and a printer that holds Letter paper. The PDF is A4, or Legal, or some odd size a school sent home. Printed as it is, it may shrink in a way you did not choose, or run off the edge. It is better to set the page size first, then print.

This guide shows how to do that on an iPhone in a minute or two. It also shows what happens to the size of your text, so you know before you press print.

How do I resize a PDF on my iPhone for print?

Open Resize PDF in your phone's browser, add the file, choose the paper size you will print on and save the new copy. The tool runs in your browser, so the file is not uploaded. Then print the new copy.

1. Open Resize PDF in your iPhone's browser and choose your PDF from your phone. The tool shows the size the file has now, such as A4.
2. Pick the paper in your printer. Letter, Legal, A4, A3, A5, A6 and Tabloid are on the list. You can also type your own width and height in inches or millimetres.
3. Choose portrait, landscape or as is. As is keeps each page tall or wide the way it is now, which suits a file that mixes both.
4. Add a margin if your printer cuts off the edges. Leave it at zero to use the whole page.
5. Press Resize PDF, scroll through the result, then download it. The result screen shows the old and the new size.
6. Open the saved copy and print it with your phone's print option, or send it to a computer and print there.

What happens to the content when I change the paper size?

Each page is made bigger or smaller by the same amount in both directions until it fits, then centered. Nothing is stretched or squashed. If the new page is a different shape, the spare room shows as white space. Links, form fields and notes move with the content.

How small will my text get?

It depends on the two paper shapes. The page is scaled until the tighter side just fits, so the text shrinks by that same ratio. These figures are calculated from the standard paper sizes, for text that starts at 11 point.

• A4 to Letter: pages shrink to about 94 percent. 11 point text becomes about 10.4 point. You see thin white strips of about 0.36 inch at each side.
• Letter to A4: pages shrink to about 97 percent. 11 point text becomes about 10.7 point. You see strips of about 0.5 inch at the top and the bottom.
• Legal to Letter: pages shrink to about 79 percent. 11 point text becomes about 8.6 point. You see strips of about 0.9 inch at each side.

So A4 and Letter swap well. Legal to Letter costs real size, and small print in a Legal form may be hard to read. If so, print on Legal paper, or crop the white margins first with Crop PDF so the content can grow.

Should I use a margin?

Use one when your printer leaves an unprinted strip along the edges, which many home printers do. Check a test page on yours. A margin keeps white space on every side, and the content is scaled to fit inside it. A bigger margin means smaller text, so start small.

A worked example

Priya is an office manager. A supplier sends a price list on A4, and the office printer only has Letter paper. She opens Resize PDF on her phone, picks Letter and portrait, and saves. The 11 point text is now about 10.4 point, with a thin strip at each side. She prints the new copy and the whole page lands on the sheet.

Is resizing the same as making the file smaller?

No. Resizing changes the page size. Compress PDF changes the size in megabytes, which matters when an email or upload is too big. If that is your problem, read how to resize a PDF file, which covers both jobs.

Common problems and fixes

• The text prints too small. Choose a paper size closer to the original, or crop the empty margins first.
• A page prints sideways. Choose portrait or landscape instead of as is, or turn it with Rotate PDF.
• Page edges are cut off. Add a margin and resize again from your original file.
• You wanted only some pages. Use Split PDF first, then resize the part you need.

Where does your file go?

Resize PDF changes the pages in your browser tab, so the file is not sent to our servers. Your original file is not changed, so you can resize it again to another size.

2 free uses in total, no account needed. Free files can be up to 50 MB, and Pro allows up to 500 MB.

Sources

• PDFinish's own Resize PDF page, for the paper sizes, the orientation choices, the margin, the scaling and the limits, as of November 2026.
• The standard paper sizes (Letter 8.5 by 11 inches, Legal 8.5 by 14 inches, A4 210 by 297 millimetres). The scale figures above are our own arithmetic from these sizes.