5 mm graph paper, US Letter sheet

What this sheet is

The same 5 mm squared ruling as the A4 sheet, laid out on US Letter: 215.9 by 279.4 millimetres. The spacing is identical. Almost nothing the paper touches is. The writing area takes 39 columns and 51 rows here, which is 1,989 squares, drawn with 92 ruled lines.

The ruling is centred in the writing area, with the leftover fraction of a square split between the two margins rather than left against one edge. Letter is the wider sheet and the shorter one, so the fraction that has to be absorbed is different in each direction from the A4 sheet’s — which is the reason this sheet is drawn for the paper instead of borrowed from it.

What the paper changes

The change shows up directly in the count: 39 columns across against the A4 sheet’s 38, and 51 rows down against its 55. The totals land close together — 1,989 squares here, 2,090 on A4 — but they are not the same sheet, and a drawing that fills one will not fill the other.

The practical rule is short. If the printer is loaded with US Letter, print this sheet. Printing the A4 sheet on Letter paper does not give you A4 squares on Letter paper. It gives you a scaled sheet, and the scaling is applied to the ruling as surely as to the border.

Printing it at true size

Both directions of that mistake are worth knowing, because both are one careless click away.

A4 sent to a Letter tray with Fit to page left on is scaled to 94.1 per cent, and a 5 mm square arrives as 4.7 mm. This Letter sheet sent to an A4 tray under the same setting is scaled to 97.3 per cent, and 5 mm arrives as 4.86 mm. The second is the gentler error and the more dangerous one: 4.86 is close enough to 5 that nothing on the printed page invites a second look.

Set the scale to 100 per cent, or Actual size, and measure the bar in the foot margin. It is printed at a stated length and labelled with it so that a rule can settle the matter without any judgement being involved.

What else the bench will set

Paper is a control like any other on this page, so a sheet begun on Letter can be moved to A4, A5, A3 or Legal and redrawn for that paper rather than scaled onto it. The count changes when you do; that is the point of redrawing rather than resizing.

The spacing runs through the metric and inch pitches, the sheet can be turned to landscape, and the ink can be grey, blue or black. A red margin rule, name and date lines, a heavier line every fifth and the measuring bar are each optional. The file comes out as a PDF, a PNG or an SVG, drawn here in the browser and uploaded nowhere.