North American sizes / Tabloid
Tabloid page size for PDF generation
Tabloid is 11 by 17 inches, which is two Letter sheets side by side, and it is the North American equivalent of A3.
The dimensions
One measurement in four units. Millimetres and inches are what a printer works in; points are what the PDF itself stores; pixels are only useful for checking a screen mock-up against the real thing.
- Millimetres: 279.4 x 431.8 mm
- Inches: 11 x 17 in
- Points: 792 x 1224 pt
- CSS pixels: 1056 x 1632 px at 96 dpi
Where the size comes from
Tabloid and Ledger are the same rectangle named by orientation: Tabloid is the portrait one, Ledger is the landscape one. Unlike Letter and Half Letter, folding a Tabloid sheet does give exactly two Letter pages, so a Letter booklet imposes onto Tabloid cleanly. It is the one place where the North American sizes behave like the A series.
What gets printed at this size
- wide reports and dashboards that need the width
- Letter booklets imposed two-up for saddle stitching
- large schedules, org charts and financial models
Margins that survive a real printer
0.75 inch all round for a standalone sheet. If the sheet is being folded into a Letter booklet, treat the fold at 8.5 inches as an edge and keep content 0.5 inch clear of it on both sides, because a folded sheet never lines up as precisely as the file suggests.
The CSS
Tabloid is one of the six named formats the render API accepts, so it can be set in the request options or in the document's own CSS. Setting it in CSS keeps the size with the template, which is usually what you want.
@page {
size: Tabloid portrait;
margin: 0.75in;
}
/* Ledger is the same sheet, landscape. There is no separate format
value for it: set landscape in the render options instead. */The render request
With a named format the size travels in the options and the CSS is optional.
{
"html": "<!doctype html>...",
"options": {
"format": "Tabloid",
"margin": { "top": "18mm", "bottom": "18mm", "left": "16mm", "right": "16mm" }
}
}The mistake people make
Naming it Ledger in the render options. The API takes Tabloid and applies orientation separately, so asking for Ledger is a rejected request rather than a rotated page.
Frequently asked
What is Tabloid in pixels?
1056 x 1632 px at 96 dpi, at the 96 pixels to the inch that CSS assumes. That number is useful for comparing a screen mock-up against the page, and useless for laying out the document: use 279.4 x 431.8 mm instead, because a page laid out in pixels shifts whenever the render scale changes.
Can I pass Tabloid as a format?
Yes. "Tabloid" is one of the six format values the API accepts, alongside A4, A3, A5, Letter, Legal and Tabloid.
Does landscape need a different page size?
No. Landscape is the same rectangle turned, so it is set as an orientation rather than as swapped dimensions. Writing the width and height the other way round produces the same page and makes the intent harder to read later.
Other page sizes
Sizes that come up in the same conversation, and one from each of the other families.
US Letter page size for PDF generation
Letter is 8.5 by 11 inches and it is the default page in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile and the Philippines.
US Legal page size for PDF generation
Legal is 8.5 by 14 inches: Letter width with three extra inches of height, used for contracts and court documents.
Half Letter page size for PDF generation
Half Letter is 5.5 by 8.5 inches, the North American answer to A5, made by cutting a Letter sheet across its long side.
Executive page size for PDF generation
Executive is 7.25 by 10.5 inches, a narrower and slightly shorter Letter used for company stationery and internal memos.
A4 page size for PDF generation
A4 is the default page for business documents everywhere except North America, and the default this API uses when no format is given.
4x6 shipping label PDF size
The 4 by 6 inch label is the standard thermal shipping label accepted by every major carrier, and the most common non-paper page size an API renders.
80mm thermal receipt PDF size
The 80mm roll is the standard point-of-sale receipt: 80 millimetres of paper, a printable width of about 72mm, and a length that depends on the order.
Every page size, with dimensions
The full list, grouped by what the size is for.
Paste the CSS below into the playground and see the page box it produces.