Tool
How many fit on a sheet?
Give the size of what you are printing and see how many fit, how to arrange them, and how much paper is left over — then download a sheet with the cut guides already drawn.
Gap 0 shares one cut line between neighbours — fewer cuts, no waste strip, and it fits more. Use 3–5 mm if you are cutting by hand or the design bleeds to the edge.
Per sheet
9
3 across × 3 down · turned 90°
Paper used
67%
33% is margin, gaps and offcut
Drawn to scale. Dashed line is the 10 mm printer margin.
Print at 100% / Actual size — at Fit to page every item comes out 3–6% small and nothing lines up. The calibration test confirms your printer in one page.
Keeps these settings in the link. Useful for moving from a phone to the computer with the printer on it.
Frequently asked questions
How many business cards fit on an A4 sheet?
Nine, in a 3 × 3 grid, when the standard 85 × 55 mm European card is turned sideways and a 10 mm printer margin is kept clear. Upright it drops to six, which is why so many home-printed card sheets waste a third of the paper. US cards at 89 × 51 mm also give nine on Letter. The calculator above shows the arrangement rather than just the number, because the orientation is the part people get wrong.
Why does turning the item fit more?
Because a sheet is rarely a whole multiple of an item in either direction, and the leftover differs by orientation. An 85 mm card across a 190 mm printable width leaves 20 mm wasted; turned, 55 mm divides into 190 three times with 25 mm spare but gains a whole extra row down the length. The calculator tries both and keeps the better, telling you when it turned the item.
Should I leave a gap between items or let them touch?
Let them touch when you will cut with a guillotine or trimmer: one straight cut serves both neighbours, there is no waste strip, and the layout fits more. Leave a gap of 3–5 mm when cutting by hand with scissors, when the design has a background that runs to the edge and needs bleed, or when slight misalignment would be visible. The tool draws different guides for each: continuous lines for touching items, individual outlines with crop marks when there is a gap.
What margin should I set?
Ten millimetres is safe on essentially every home printer and is the default here. Most machines can reach a little closer, often 3–5 mm, but not reliably and rarely at the trailing edge — and a layout that assumes more than the printer delivers loses its bottom row entirely. If you know your printer’s real printable area, use that; otherwise keep 10 mm and accept one fewer row.
Does this work for photos and postcards?
Yes — anything rectangular. A 10 × 15 cm photo gives two per A4, a 4 × 6 inch photo the same, and A6 postcards two per sheet. For photographs, check the resolution holds at the printed size before committing a sheet of photo paper: our image quality analyser reports the effective PPI for any target size.
Why does the print come out slightly wrong even though the layout is right?
Almost always print scaling. If the dialog is set to Fit to page rather than Actual size, the whole sheet shrinks by 3–6% and every item with it — cards come out at 82 × 53 mm instead of 85 × 55, and pre-cut stock no longer aligns. Print at 100% and verify once with our calibration sheet before running a batch.