Poster Printer
Turn a photo, drawing or PDF page into a poster made of ordinary sheets: choose the size, see exactly how the sheets fall, and print one PDF with overlap, cut marks and an assembly guide.
At a glance
- Splits a picture or a PDF page across A4, US Letter, A3, Legal, Tabloid or A5 sheets, up to 400 of them, as one PDF for any home printer.
- Set the size in sheets (for example 3 across) or in cm or inches, or fit it to A0–A3 or an 18 × 24, 24 × 36 or 27 × 40 inch poster. On Auto, the sheets are turned whichever way needs fewer of them.
- Neighbouring sheets can overlap by up to 30 mm for gluing, with a dashed line to line them up. Each sheet gets cut marks and a name such as B3, with its neighbours listed.
- An optional first page holds the assembly guide: a map of the sheets, the steps and a 10 cm line to check the printer did not shrink the page. The PDF also asks PDF readers to print at actual size.
- Shows print quality as you resize: the picture’s pixels per inch and the distance from which single pixels can no longer be seen. A PDF page stays vector, sharp at any size.
- A dots style turns the picture into a halftone of black, coloured or single-colour dots, the look the Rasterbator made popular.
- JPGs and PNGs go into the PDF unchanged, and the picture is stored once however many sheets there are, so the file stays small. Nothing is uploaded.
Step by step
How to print a poster on A4 or Letter pages
- 1
Add your picture
Drop a JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC photo, paste one, or choose a PDF and the page to print.
- 2
Choose the size
Under Poster size, pick how many Sheets across or down, or switch to Size for a width, height or standard poster size.
- 3
Set the paper
Choose the sheet size, how the sheets are turned, the printer margin and the overlap for gluing. Check the preview and the print quality.
- 4
Make the PDF
Press Make poster PDF, look through the pages, then Download PDF.
- 5
Print and assemble
Print at Actual size / 100 %, check the 10 cm line on the guide page, trim the margins and glue the sheets in the order of their names.
Features
Everything you need, nothing you don’t
See every sheet before you print
The preview shows where each sheet falls on the picture, where they overlap and what each one is called, and updates as you change the size or paper.
Sheets that join up
Overlap strips, dashed alignment lines, cut marks in the margins and a named grid make putting the poster together a matter of following the letters.
Honest about quality
Big posters from small pictures look soft. The tool tells you the pixels per inch, how far away the poster will look sharp, and the largest size that keeps 150 ppi.
PDFs stay sharp
Print a PDF page – an A1 conference poster, a map, a floor plan – on A4 at home. Text and drawings are copied as vector graphics, not turned into pixels.
Dot posters
Choose dot spacing and colour for a bold halftone poster that reads from across the room and hides a low-resolution picture.
Private
Pictures and PDFs are read and laid out by your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere; only your settings are remembered on this device.
How many sheets does a poster need?
Printers cannot print to the edge of the paper, and sheets that overlap a little are much easier to line up, so a poster needs more sheets than its area alone suggests. These counts are for a picture shaped like the poster, with the sheets turned whichever way needs fewer.
| Poster | Size | A4 sheets (10 mm margin, 10 mm overlap) | A4 sheets (5 mm margin, no overlap) | US Letter (10 mm margin, 10 mm overlap) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A3 | 29.7 × 42 cm | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| A2 | 42 × 59.4 cm | 8 | 6 | 8 |
| A1 | 59.4 × 84.1 cm | 15 | 9 | 15 |
| A0 | 84.1 × 118.9 cm | 25 | 18 | 25 |
| 18 × 24 in | 45.7 × 61 cm | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| 24 × 36 in | 61 × 91.4 cm | 16 | 15 | 15 |
How big can you print a photo?
Print quality depends on how many of the picture’s pixels land on each inch of paper (ppi). Close up, 150 ppi or more looks sharp. A poster is usually seen from further away, where fewer pixels per inch are enough: the table gives the distance at which single pixels become too small to see, taking sharp eyesight as one minute of arc.
| Pixels per inch | Looks sharp from | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | 0.3 m | photo prints held in the hand |
| 150 | 0.6 m | posters seen up close |
| 100 | 0.9 m | posters on a wall |
| 72 | 1.2 m | large posters across a room |
| 50 | 1.75 m | banners and dot posters |
Largest poster at 150 ppi
Bigger is fine if the poster will be seen from further away – or choose the dots style, which looks best when the picture is coarse.
| Camera | Picture size | Up to (long side) |
|---|---|---|
| 12 megapixels | 4000 × 3000 px | 67.7 × 50.8 cm |
| 24 megapixels | 6000 × 4000 px | 101.6 × 67.7 cm |
| 48 megapixels | 8000 × 6000 px | 135.5 × 101.6 cm |
Tips for a neat poster
- Print a single test sheet first and check that the 10 cm line really measures 10 cm.
- Turn off borderless printing and any “fit”, “shrink” or “scale to page” option.
- Heavier paper (100–120 g/m²) or matte photo paper wrinkles less under glue.
- Trim with a metal ruler and a craft knife; scissors leave wavy edges that show at the joins.
- Use a glue stick or double-sided tape in the overlap strips; wet glue makes paper ripple.
- Join each row first, then join the rows – it is easier to keep long edges straight.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How do I print one picture on several pages?
Why don’t my printed sheets line up?
What printer margin should I use?
How many A4 pages make an A1 poster?
Can I print a PDF poster on A4 sheets?
What is rasterbation?
Is my picture uploaded?
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