Illustrator

Scale a document for printing

To fit an oversized document on a piece of paper smaller than the artwork’s actual dimensions, you can use the Print dialog box to scale the document’s width and height, either symmetrically or asymmetrically. Asymmetric scaling is useful when, for example, you’re printing film for use on a flexographic press: if you know in which direction the plate will be mounted on the press drum, scaling can compensate for the 2% to 3% stretching of the plate that usually occurs. Scaling does not affect the size of the pages in the document, it just changes the scale at which the document prints.

  1. Choose File > Print.
  2. Do one of the following:

    • To prevent scaling, select Do Not Scale.

    • To scale the document automatically to fit to the page, select Fit To Page. The scaling percentage is determined by the imageable area defined by the selected PPD.

    • To activate the Width and Height text boxes, select Custom Scale. Enter percentages from 1 to 1000 for the width or height. Deselect the Constrain Proportions button  to change the document width-to-height ratio.