Printing 12" x 12" on Regular Paper

A few people have asked me how to print 12x12 inch digital papers on regular size paper (US letter size, rest of the world A4 size). 12x12 digital papers are made specifically for digital scrapbooking BUT they CAN be printed on your home (color) printer or you can take the files to your favorite print shop. Since they are 12x12 inches, if you're printing on letter size (or A4) paper you have a couple of choices...

Option 1: tell the printer to ignore the fact that the print area is larger than the paper (let it cut off the extra, so you will have a design that fills the whole page).

Option 2: tell the printer to reduce the print area so that it fits on your paper (you will have a much smaller design that is square -- approx 8x8 inches -- and does NOT fill the whole page).

Preview of a 12" x 12" background

Preview of Option 1 (see instructions above)

Preview of Option 2 (see instructions above)

If you have Photoshop, Photoshop Essentials, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP (or other image editing software) you can easily edit the size of the original 12×12 papers. Just create a blank image the size you want. For clarity let’s call this your “template”. Now open the 12×12 paper and drag it onto your template. Resize the original 12×12 to whatever size you want (or leave it as-is). This also allows you the option of centering the design on your template so that all the left/right (and top/bottom) edges start and end with the same parts of the design.

Here is an example of the same design centered on a US Letter Size paper:

PS: Your printer might have the option to center the design on the paper, without editing it. Not all printers have this option, though.

You can also copy and paste the pages into a Word document or any other software that allows you to insert images (such as Power Point). Re-size the image by dragging the corner of the image until it fits the size of your page. Save and print as you would normally.

I will be happy to create custom sizes for you, or make US Letter (or A4) versions with the design already centered and formatted. Contact me on Facebook with your requests.