Convert an A4 PDF to US Letter
A4 pages moved onto 8.5 × 11 inch paper, scaled to fit, before they reach an American printer or portal.
- Nothing is uploaded
- Works offline after first visit
- Open source
- No watermark · limit is your device’s memory; phones hold less
Convert an A4 PDF to US Letter (8.5 × 11 in) so it prints without cut-off edges in the US and Canada. It is free, needs no account and adds no watermark, and your files are not uploaded: everything runs in your browser on your device. The size limit is your device’s memory, and phones hold less; give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, and then it works offline.
Done
Open the network tab. Your files never appear in it.
Add files and run the tool to see every request this tab makes.
Your files are processed on this device and never sent to a server. Reload the page to clear everything from memory.
A4 is 210 × 297 mm; US Letter is 8.5 × 11 inches, or 215.9 × 279.4 mm. Letter is 5.9 mm wider but 17.6 mm shorter, so an A4 page sent to a printer loaded with Letter either loses a strip at the bottom or gets shrunk by the printer driver in a way you do not control. Some American application portals also check the page size and reject A4.
A worked example: you are in the UK and a company in Chicago asks for your CV as a Letter-size PDF. Drop the A4 CV here; Letter is already chosen. Because A4 is taller in proportion, the height decides the scale: each page shrinks to 94% (792 ÷ 841.89 points) and is centred, leaving a white band of about 9 mm down each side. The text stays text, so the recruiter’s tracking system can still read it, and the links to your portfolio still work.
If your document has important content right at the edges, add a 5 mm margin so nothing sits under the printer’s unprintable border. Landscape pages stay landscape.
How it works
- Drop the A4 PDF; US Letter is already chosen.
- Add a margin if the content runs to the very edge of the page.
- Press Convert to Letter and send or print the new file.
In your browser, not on a server
pdf-lib (MIT) opens the PDF in your tab. Each page gets the new paper size, turned to match the page as it is shown, and its existing content is wrapped in a single transform that scales it to fit inside the margin and centres it, with a clip at the old page edge. Nothing is redrawn or rasterised, so text, vector drawings and images are unchanged. Links, form fields and comments are moved and scaled by the same amount.
Compared with upload-based tools: Online resizers upload the PDF, and many rasterise the pages or cap free use. Here the document stays on your device, the text stays real text, and the limit is your device’s memory (phones hold less).
Verify it yourself. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use, then turn off Wi-Fi or switch to airplane mode and run the tool again. Or open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd-Option-I on a Mac), pick the Network tab, and watch it while you convert. The panel above does the same count for you.
Questions
Why not just print with “fit to page”?
That works for your own printer, but the file itself stays A4. When the PDF goes to someone else, an online form or a print shop, converting the file means everyone gets Letter pages.
Will the page look smaller?
Slightly: content is scaled to 94%, which is barely noticeable on a printed page. A 10-point font prints at about 9.4 points.
Which countries use Letter?
The United States and Canada, plus a few others such as Mexico and the Philippines. Most of the rest of the world uses A4.
Is the file uploaded anywhere?
No. There is no server in this process. The page is a static file and the work is done by code running inside your browser tab. Give the page a short while after one visit to save itself for offline use; then you can turn off Wi-Fi and it still works.
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