Everything else / US business check
US check PDF size and MICR placement
A US business check is 8.5 by 3.5 inches, and almost every constraint on it comes from the machine-readable line along the bottom.
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: 215.9 x 88.9 mm
- Inches: 8.5 x 3.5 in
- Points: 612 x 252 pt
- CSS pixels: 816 x 336 px at 96 dpi
Where the size comes from
The dimensions and the position of the MICR line are set by the banking standards so that reader-sorter equipment can process a check drawn on any bank. The MICR line sits in a band a quarter of an inch high starting 0.1875 inch from the bottom edge, and the characters are printed in E-13B at a fixed pitch. That band is why the size cannot move.
What gets printed at this size
- printed business checks, usually on pre-printed blank stock
- check and remittance advice combinations on a Letter sheet
- voucher checks where the check is one panel of a larger page
Margins that survive a real printer
0.25 inch on the sides and top, and nothing at all in the bottom 0.625 inch, which belongs to the MICR clear band. Nothing may print in that band except the MICR line itself: not a background tint, not a footer, not a border.
The CSS
US business check is not one of the six named formats the API accepts, so the size has to come from the document. Declare it in the page box and set prefer_css_page_size in the request.
@page {
size: 8.5in 3.5in;
margin: 0.25in 0.25in 0.625in;
}
.micr {
position: absolute;
left: 0.25in;
right: 0.25in;
bottom: 0.1875in;
height: 0.25in;
/* E-13B is a licensed typeface with magnetic ink requirements. It
has to be embedded in the document and printed with the right
toner; a lookalike font renders but will not read. */
font-family: "MICR E13B", monospace;
font-size: 12pt;
}The render request
With a custom size the options carry no format at all: the one flag tells the renderer to use the page box the document declares.
{
"html": "<!doctype html>...",
"options": {
// No named format. The page box in the document's own CSS is the
// size, and this flag is what tells the renderer to use it.
"prefer_css_page_size": true
}
}The mistake people make
Substituting a free MICR lookalike font. It will render, it will look right, and reader-sorter equipment will reject the check, because the character shapes are only half the specification and the magnetic response is the other half.
Frequently asked
What is US business check in pixels?
816 x 336 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 215.9 x 88.9 mm instead, because a page laid out in pixels shifts whenever the render scale changes.
Can I pass US business check as a format?
No. The API accepts six named formats: A4, A3, A5, Letter, Legal and Tabloid. US business check is reached through the document's page box with prefer_css_page_size set, which is a supported path and not a workaround.
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.
16:9 slide page size for PDF export
A 16:9 slide is 338.67 by 190.5 millimetres, which is 1280 by 720 pixels at 96 to the inch, and it is the page to use when the PDF will be projected rather than printed.
Set a custom PDF page size in millimetres
Any page size at all is reachable by declaring it in the document's own CSS and asking the renderer to honour that page box rather than a named format.
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.
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.
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.
Business card PDF size and bleed
85.6 by 53.98 millimetres is the ID-1 rectangle: the size of a bank card, and the business card standard across most of the world.
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.