Printing on A4 vs 4 x 6 in: which sheet to choose

Our tool renders the print sheet on four papers: 4 x 6 in, 5 x 7 in, A4 and US Letter, all at 300 DPI with cut marks and a printed ruler. Which one to download is not a quality question, because the photos are identical on every sheet; it is a question of what your printer, kiosk or lab can actually put paper through at 100 percent scale. This guide says which sheet to pick where, and how many photos each one yields.

Pick the paper your printer really holds

The commonest sizing accident is printing a sheet onto different paper and letting the driver 'help'. An A4 sheet sent to a Letter printer, or a Letter sheet to an A4 printer, gets scaled by a few percent unless scaling is locked at 100, and a scaled sheet fails the size rules everywhere. So choose the sheet that matches paper you own: 4 x 6 or Letter in North America, A4 or 10 x 15 cm nearly everywhere else. We default to 4 x 6 for US and Canadian documents and A4 elsewhere for exactly this reason, and after a purchase you can re-tile the sheet onto another paper at no extra cost.

Photo kiosks are a 4 x 6 world: UK kiosks at Boots, Tesco and Asda print 6 x 4 in (often labelled 10 x 15 cm), and US pharmacy labs quote their cheapest price for the same size ($0.39 at Walgreens, from $0.42 at CVS, prices checked 2026-10-11). Few kiosks offer A4. Home inkjets are the opposite: most hold A4 or Letter trays, and 4 x 6 photo paper needs a dedicated feed slot.

How many photos fit

On a 35 x 45 mm photo, the most common print size in our dataset and the one used by the UK printed passport, a 4 x 6 sheet holds 4 photos, A4 holds 25 and Letter 28. The 2 x 2 in US passport photo fits twice on 4 x 6 and 15 times on A4 or Letter. Canada's 50 x 70 mm passport photo fits twice on 4 x 6 and 10 times on A4. Since most applications need one or two prints, the 4 x 6 sheet is nearly always enough, and it is also the cheapest sheet a store will print.

A bigger sheet earns its keep when several people apply together: one A4 covers a whole family's prints in a single pass through the printer, with the ruler and caption printed once in the footer.

When the paper size is part of the rule

A few authorities constrain the print medium itself, not just the photo. India's Passport Seva says a photograph in computer print will not be accepted for the Indian passport, so the sheet must go to a photo lab regardless of its paper size. Canada does not accept photos printed at home at all. For those documents the choice of A4 versus 4 x 6 is the lab's to make; what matters is handing over the sheet with a 'print at 100 percent, no cropping' instruction and running the ruler check on the result.

Choosing in one minute

A short decision list.

1.Printing at a store, kiosk or pharmacy lab: download the 4 x 6 sheet.
2.Printing at home in North America: Letter if that is the paper in your tray, otherwise 4 x 6.
3.Printing at home anywhere else: A4.
4.Several applicants at once: A4 or Letter, one pass.
5.Lab-only countries (for example Canada and India): any sheet; the lab picks its stock, you check the ruler.