Resize PDF pages to A4, Letter or another size

Why page size matters

A PDF page has a fixed size, and documents assembled from different sources end up with a mix: phone scans at odd dimensions, receipts as long thin strips, letters on US Letter, forms on A4. On screen this looks untidy. In print it is worse: a page larger than the paper gets cut off, and one much smaller prints as a postage stamp in the corner. Some upload portals check page size and reject anything that is not A4.

How resizing works

Each page is placed onto a new page of the size you choose, scaled up or down so that it fits entirely, and centred. The proportions are never changed, so text is not squashed and circles stay round. If a page is a different shape from the paper — a receipt on A4, say — you will see white space around it. That is deliberate: the alternative is cropping or distortion.

Pages that are already the right size, with no border requested, are copied across untouched. The page content itself is not redrawn as a picture, so text stays sharp and selectable at any zoom.

Choosing the orientation

Follow each page gives landscape pages a landscape sheet and portrait pages a portrait one, which is right for most documents. Choose Always portrait when a portal or printer insists on it; landscape pages are then shrunk to fit the width, which keeps them readable but smaller. Rotating sideways scans first with Rotate PDF usually gives a better result than forcing them into portrait.

A4 or Letter?

A4 (210 × 297 mm) is the standard almost everywhere, including Nepal, India, the UK, Europe and Australia. US Letter (8.5 × 11 inches) is used in the United States, Canada and parts of Latin America. They are close but not the same: Letter is slightly wider and shorter. If you are sending a document abroad and the recipient will print it, use their standard.