Format profile / LETTER
Letter
215.9 × 279.4 mm · 8.5 × 11 in
Width
215.9 mm
Height
279.4 mm
Area
603 cm²
Finished-size ledger
Pixel canvas by resolution
rounded to whole pixelsBleed and safe-area canvases
confirm with your printer3 mm on every edge
221.9 × 285.4 mm
Artwork canvas with bleed. Keep essential content inside roughly 209.9 × 273.4 mm if the same distance is also used as a simple safety margin.
5 mm on every edge
225.9 × 289.4 mm
Artwork canvas with bleed. Keep essential content inside roughly 205.9 × 269.4 mm if the same distance is also used as a simple safety margin.
Closest standard formats
both edges comparedWhere Letter fits
4 common usesNext in the North America drawer
larger / smallerSet up Letter artwork without guessing
Start the document at the finished size—215.9 × 279.4 mm—and add the bleed your printer specifies outside that edge. A common 3 mm bleed produces a 221.9 × 285.4 mm artwork canvas. Keep type, logos, folds, and other critical details inside the trim line; a safety margin is not the same thing as bleed.
Pixel dimensions only become meaningful when paired with a resolution. At 300 DPI, this format is 2,550 × 3,300 pixels. Changing that number in an export dialog without resampling does not add image detail—it only changes the declared physical scale.
Letter belongs to the North American group. Its 1:1.294 proportion differs from the ISO √2 family, so moving an existing layout to A-series paper can change margins, line length, and page count.