Sticker Bench

Print at true size: preventing printer scaling

The most common sticker-sheet failure is a print scaled by a few percent, often without any warning. Every sticker ends up slightly smaller and the cut lines no longer match.

Before you print

  1. Download the PDF from the studio. Its page size is exactly the paper you chose, and it asks viewers not to scale (PrintScaling /None). Not every viewer honours that request, so check the settings anyway.
  2. In the print dialog, choose Actual size, 100% or Scale: 100. Turn off Fit to page, Shrink oversized pages and Fit to printable area. The labels differ between apps.
  3. Make sure the paper size in the dialog matches your sheet (A4 vs Letter). A mismatch is the usual cause of automatic shrinking. See A4 vs Letter.
  4. Turn off borderless printing. Borderless modes usually enlarge the page slightly so the ink runs off the edges.
  5. Leave margins of at least the printer's unprintable edge. Many home printers can't print the outer 3–5 mm, which is why the studio's default margin is 10 mm.

Check with the calibration bars

With Calibration marks on, page 1 carries a 50 mm bar and a 2 in bar in the bottom-left of the printable area. Measure one with a ruler after printing. A 50 mm bar measuring 47 mm means the page was scaled to 94%, the typical A4-on-Letter shrink. Fix the print settings and reprint; don't resize the stickers.

For a quick check, use plain paper first. Sticker paper is costly, and the bars work the same on either.

Print shops

Send the PDF, not the PNG, and say it's a true-size file. The PNG has its dpi recorded, but some apps ignore it and scale to fit. Ask the shop about their bleed requirements and any cutting marks they need: Sticker Bench's cut lines are a guide and aren't tied to any particular cutting system.