Printing quilt patterns at 100 percent
Print at 100% or "Actual size" — never "Fit to page", which shrinks every measurement on the sheet. The square below proves your printer obeyed.
Scroll sideways to inspect every label.
The calibration square
Measure this square before you cut. It must be exactly 1 inch. If it isn't, your printer scaled the page — reprint at 100% or "Actual size", not "Fit to page".
The settings that scale your page
- "Fit to page" and "Shrink to fit"
This setting shrinks the whole sheet so nothing is clipped, taking every measurement down with it. Choose "Actual size" or "100%" instead, and accept that a margin may be trimmed.
- A print scale set below 100%
Browser print dialogs carry a scale field that remembers its last value. If a previous job set it to anything but 100, every page after it prints small — check the field every time, not once.
- "Fit printable area"
Printers that cannot print to the paper's edge sometimes shrink the page to fit inside their margins instead of clipping it. Turn the option off, or accept clipped margins — the chart matters, the margin does not.
- Printing from a phone preview
Share-sheet and preview apps often re-scale a page to fit the screen before sending it to the printer. Print from the browser's own print action, and measure the square before trusting anything the phone printed.
What a wrong scale costs, in inches
Scroll sideways to see every column.
| Measurement | at 100% | at 97% | at 95% |
|---|---|---|---|
| The calibration squareshould measure 1″ | 1″ | 0.97″ | 0.95″ |
| A cut square for a 2″ finished patchshould measure 2½″ | 2½″ | 2.425″ | 2.375″ |
| A cut square for a 12″ finished blockshould measure 12½″ | 12½″ | 12.125″ | 11.875″ |
The percentages are worked examples, not a claim about your printer. Notice the trap in the bottom row: a 12½″ piece printed at 97% measures 12.125″, which is a clean 12⅛″ on the ruler and looks perfectly plausible. A mis-scaled print can land back on ruler marks, so you cannot catch it by checking whether pieces measure a sensible number. The calibration square is the only honest check: it must measure exactly 1″, and anything else means reprint.
Every block page prints with this square on it
Print any chart here and the square rides along, so you can check the scale before cutting a single piece.
- Bear's Paw
- Broken Dishes
- Card Trick
- Churn Dash
- Flying Geese
- Friendship Star
- Heart
- Jacob's Ladder
- Log Cabin
- Maple Leaf
- Nine Patch
- Ohio Star
- Pinwheel
- Rail Fence
- Sawtooth Star
- Shoofly
- Sister's Choice
- Square in a Square
Related pages
- Half square triangle chart Print every HST starting square from one chart.
- Why is my quilt block the wrong size? Diagnose seams, printing, sizing, or an uncuttable target.
- Quilt block glossary Look up the measurement and unit words used here.
Common questions
Why did my printed template come out the wrong size?
Something between the page and the paper scaled it. Check the four settings above, then reprint and measure the calibration square before cutting anything.
What is the calibration square for?
It is your proof of scale. The square is drawn at exactly 1 inch, so a ruler held against the printed page tells you in one glance whether every other measurement on the sheet can be trusted. If the square is off, every number is off by the same factor.
Which print setting do I use?
"Actual size" or "100%", every time — never "Fit to page", "Shrink to fit" or "Fit printable area". Then measure the square anyway: the setting is what you asked for, the square is what you got.