NOTES FROM THE WORKBENCH
Portrait or landscape for a box template?
Rotate the paper calculation while keeping the template's physical dimensions fixed.
Reviewed October 27, 2026
Compare drawing areas, not sheet labels
A4 portrait measures 210 × 297 mm and landscape swaps those axes. The usable drawing area is smaller after margins and reserved header and footer bands. A long template may benefit from landscape, but the available height also becomes shorter.
In the tray example, 10 mm outer margins, a 10 mm header and a 16 mm footer leave a 190 × 251 mm drawing window on portrait A4. These settings are part of the comparison, not incidental decoration.
Keep the net unchanged
The example tray occupies 300 × 220 mm before its protective annotation band, or 308 × 228 mm with that band. Choosing another orientation must not silently change those numbers.
Inspect both orientations at 100% in the preview. Count the tiles from the actual artwork and available area, including the printed overlap. A page can fail on one axis even though its total area is larger than the net's area.
Use tiling when neither fits
If no orientation contains the whole layout, choose tiled pages or a larger paper format. The file should make the resulting page count clear. Shrinking is a separate deliberate choice because it also changes the finished object.
A4 and Letter are not identical rectangles with different names. Letter is wider and shorter than portrait A4, so one format can solve a width problem while introducing a height problem.
Check the exported setting again
Use the same paper format in the print application as in the exported PDF. Print existing tiled pages one per sheet at Actual size or 100%, then check the ruler.
The screen's Fit control only enlarges or reduces the preview to suit the canvas. It is unrelated to the printer dialog's Fit setting. Keep that distinction explicit when repeating a project on a different printer.
Sources and methods
Ready to make something?
Set the dimensions. Check the folds. Make a small test box.