Printer Cutting Off the Edges of the Page? Here Is the Fix

You print a document and the last line is missing, the right edge is clipped, or everything is shifted. The printer is almost never faulty. Pakistan uses A4 paper, but much software installs with American 'Letter' paper as the default, and the two sizes are different. Work through these fixes in order.

1. Fix the A4 vs Letter mix-up

US Letter is 216 × 279 mm; A4 is 210 × 297 mm — narrower and 18 mm longer. A document laid out for A4 and printed on a Letter setting loses its bottom; a Letter setting on A4 paper shifts and clips text. Set A4 in all three places:

• Printer driver: Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Printers & scanners → your printer → Printing preferences → Paper size: A4. Click Apply so it becomes the default.
• Microsoft Word: Layout → Size → A4. To make it permanent, open Page Setup (the small arrow in the Layout tab), choose A4 on the Paper tab, and click 'Set As Default'.
• The printer itself: on printers with a screen, check the tray's paper size setting (often under Setup → Paper or Tray settings) matches A4. A mismatch can cause a 'paper size mismatch' or 'load Letter' message.

2. PDFs: fit vs actual size

• If a PDF's edges are cut off, open the print dialog in Acrobat Reader and choose 'Fit' or 'Shrink oversized pages'.
• If a form, CNIC copy or ticket must print at its exact size, choose 'Actual size' — and make sure the paper size is A4.
• In Chrome or Edge, open More settings, set Paper size to A4 and Scale to 'Fit to printable area'.

3. Excel: printing a sheet on one page

Excel cuts wide sheets into several pages. In Page Layout, set Orientation to Landscape if the sheet is wide, then set Width to '1 page' under Scale to Fit (or choose 'Fit All Columns on One Page' in the print screen). Set a Print Area first if you only need part of the sheet.

4. Printer margins: why nothing prints to the very edge

Laser printers cannot print right to the edge of the sheet — they keep a small unprintable border of a few millimetres. If your document's margins are smaller than that, the outer edge is lost. Keep margins of at least 5 mm (Word's 'Narrow' margins are fine). For edge-to-edge colour, you need a printer that supports borderless printing, or print on a larger sheet and trim — print shops use SRA3 for this, see A3 printers.

5. Printing from a phone

Phones often default to Letter too. In the print preview on Android or iPhone, open the options and set Paper size to A4 before printing. If text is still clipped, choose 'Fit to page' in HP Smart. See how to print from WhatsApp for the full steps.

6. Legal-size documents

Court documents and stamp-paper drafts are often legal size (8.5 × 14 in). Set the paper size to Legal in both the document and the driver, and load legal paper in the tray or manual feed — otherwise the bottom is cut off. Our legal size printing guide covers it in detail.

Still cut off or skewed?

• Text printed crooked or shifted to one side: slide the tray's paper guides in until they touch the stack.
• The same edge clipped on every document, from every program: reinstall the driver with the correct model — a generic driver can use wrong margins. See the driver and offline fix guide.
• Pages printed fine before and now print faded at one edge: that is a cartridge or printer fault, not a setting — see common print problems.