How to print two 5 × 7 invitations on Letter paper
Two fit. They have to be turned on their sides first, and that is the whole trick — a 5 × 7 card printed upright leaves 4 inches of Letter paper doing nothing, because a second one needs 7 more inches and there are only 4.
The arithmetic
A sheet of Letter is 8.5 × 11 in. A 5 × 7 card, left upright, takes one column and one row: 8.5 ÷ 5 is one across, 11 ÷ 7 is one down. One card, and nearly half the sheet wasted.
Turn the card on its side and it is 7 wide by 5 tall. Now 8.5 ÷ 7 is still one across, but 11 ÷ 5 is two down. Two cards, side by side down the page, with an inch of paper left over.
| Paper | 8.5 × 11 in (Letter) |
|---|---|
| Card, finished | 5 × 7 in |
| Card with 0.125 in bleed | 5.25 × 7.25 in |
| Fits upright | 1 per sheet |
| Fits turned | 2 per sheet |
| Still 2 with bleed and trim marks | Yes — 2 × 5.25 in is 10.5 in, inside 11 |
| On A4 (8.27 × 11.69 in) | 2 per sheet, also turned |
What you need
- The design at its real size — 5 × 7 in, not 1500 × 2100 px with no physical size attached.
- Letter or A4 paper. Card stock if it is going in an envelope.
- A printer that can print borderless, or a trimmer and a little patience.
Printing two on a sheet
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Open the design and choose Export
Pick PDF. A PDF keeps the physical size; a PNG is only pixels until something tells it how large to print them.
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Set the page size to the paper, not the card
Choose 8.5 × 11 in (Letter). This is the step people miss: leaving the page size as the design gives a 5 × 7 PDF, and the printer then does its own scaling.
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Turn on Print more than one to a sheet
The card is rotated a quarter turn for you and two copies are laid down the page. Rotating happens only because it fits more on — printing a single copy leaves the card upright.
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Add bleed and trim marks if you are cutting them out
Bleed is 0.125 in on every edge; trim marks sit in a 0.25 in margin outside that, at the edge of the sheet. Both still fit: two cards with bleed are 10.5 in of an 11 in page.
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Print at 100%
In the printer dialog, turn off Fit to page and Scale to fit. Any scaling makes a 5 × 7 card something other than 5 × 7.
Where it goes wrong
- Only one card prints. The page size is still the design rather than the paper. A 5 × 7 page holds one 5 × 7 card.
- The cards come out slightly small. The printer scaled them. This is almost always Fit to page, which shrinks artwork a few per cent to clear the printer's unprintable margin.
- A white line down one edge after cutting. No bleed. The cut landed a hair outside the artwork, and there was nothing there.
- Trim marks make it stop fitting. Marks need 0.25 in around the sheet. Two 5 × 7s still fit; a 6 × 8 would not, and the export says so rather than quietly cropping.
Questions
Can I fit four on a sheet?
Not at 5 × 7 on Letter. Four would need 10 in across and 14 down. Four 4 × 6 cards fit — 8 in across, 12 in down — on Legal, or two per Letter sheet.
Does this work on A4?
Yes. A4 is 8.27 × 11.69 in, slightly narrower and slightly taller than Letter, and two turned cards fit with bleed and marks the same way.
Should I send this PDF to a customer?
No. Send them one card at its own size, with no bleed and no trim marks, so it prints on whatever paper they have. The two-up sheet is for printing yourself.
What about borderless printing?
Borderless prints to the edge of the paper, which is a different thing from bleed. If you are cutting the cards out anyway, you do not need it — bleed and a trimmer give a cleaner edge than most home printers manage.