US Legal is 8.5 × 14 inches (215.9 × 355.6 mm) — three inches taller than Letter, on the same width. Here it is in pixels at every common DPI, next to the bond-paper sizes it gets confused with.
Legal paper in pixels, by DPI
Legal keeps the 8.5-inch width of Letter and stretches the height to 14 inches — 215.9 × 355.6 mm, usually rounded to 216 × 356 mm. Both numbers are whole inches, so the pixel dimensions land exactly on every standard DPI with nothing to round:
DPI
Pixels (px)
72
612 × 1008 px
96
816 × 1344 px
150
1275 × 2100 px
300
2550 × 4200 px
600
5100 × 8400 px
For comparison at 300 DPI: Letter (8.5 × 11 in) is 2550 × 3300 px, A4 (210 × 297 mm) is 2480 × 3508 px, and Tabloid (11 × 17 in) is 3300 × 5100 px.
Unit converter
DPI
Paper size
Portrait / Landscape
Size (mm)210.00 × 297.00 mm
Size at 300 DPI (px)2480 × 3508 px
Bleed & safe margin
Trim size210.00 × 297.00 mm · 2480 × 3508 px
With bleed216.00 × 303.00 mm · 2551 × 3579 px
Safe area204.00 × 291.00 mm · 2409 × 3437 px
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Setting up a Legal-size document
1
Pick Legal from the preset list, then a DPI
The converter shows the sheet in mm, cm, inches and pixels at once, so the same screen answers both "how many pixels is this canvas" and "what do I tell the print shop". If the answer that came back was "300 DPI, please", our 300 DPI guide explains what is actually being asked for.
2
Turn it sideways for tables and ledgers
Landscape Legal is 14 × 8.5 in — the shape wide financial tables and signage mockups usually want. Switching orientation swaps the pixel numbers along with it.
3
Type 13 in the inches row for long bond
Long bond paper is 8.5 × 13 in and is not one of the presets. Put 13 into the inches field and the pixel row answers for the height at the DPI you picked; 8.5 gives you the width. Legal and long bond share that 8.5-inch width, so only the height changes.
4
Add bleed before you export
Enter the bleed your printer asks for and the trim, bleed and safe-area rows update together. US shops usually quote 0.125 in, which is 3.175 mm in the millimeter field here — that makes the bleed sheet 8.75 × 14.25 in, or 2625 × 4275 px at 300 DPI.
Four places a Legal pixel size actually comes up
Legal is a working format rather than a design one. It exists because certain documents need more lines on a page, and almost every problem with it comes from equipment or software that assumed Letter instead.
A contract or filing headed to paper
Legal at 300 DPI is 2550 × 4200 px, exact rather than rounded. With the conventional one-inch margins the text block is 6.5 × 12 in — 1950 × 3600 px — which is three extra inches of body copy over a Letter page and the whole reason the format survives. Fine print and signature blocks are what set the floor here: below roughly 200 DPI, 8 pt type and hairline table rules start to break up on paper. To size a placed seal or logo in millimetres, the mm to px converter converts either way.
Scanning and archiving Legal-size paper
Document scanners ask for a resolution before anything else. 200 DPI gives 1700 × 2800 px and is the default across most scanning and document-management software — enough for reliable OCR of 10 pt text and light enough to store thousands of pages. Step up to 300 DPI (2550 × 4200 px) only when the scan will be reprinted rather than read. Fax is stranger still: Group 3 fine mode samples at 204 × 196 dpi, non-square pixels, so a faxed Legal page arrives as 1734 × 2744 px and looks slightly stretched until something corrects the aspect. Scanners write the resolution into the file header, and the DPI changer rewrites that tag when a later tool reports the wrong figure.
The printer with no Legal tray
This is the failure people actually hit. Plenty of office multifunction devices stock only Letter and A4, and 14-inch paper needs an extended tray or a manual feed. Sent to a Letter-only tray, the driver does one of two things: crop the last three inches — 900 px at 300 DPI, usually the signature block — or shrink the page to 78.6 % (11 ÷ 14), which drops 10 pt body text to about 7.9 pt and shifts every margin. Neither is something you want discovered by the person signing it. Our US Letter page has the numbers for the sheet it will land on.
Legal, Folio and long bond, which are three different sheets
They get used interchangeably and they are not. Legal is 8.5 × 14 in (2550 × 4200 px at 300 DPI). Long bond, the Philippine office standard, is 8.5 × 13 in — 2550 × 3900 px, exactly 300 px shorter. F4 or Folio, common across South and Southeast Asia, is 210 × 330 mm, which comes to 2480 × 3898 px: nearly the same height as long bond but on A4’s narrower width. Print a Folio file on Legal stock and you get a blank strip at the foot plus 70 px of unused width. Since F4 shares its width with A4, our A4 size page covers that side of the comparison.
Which DPI a Legal document actually needs
Legal documents are usually scanned, stored and reprinted rather than designed once, so this table includes the 200 DPI row that scanning software defaults to. Every figure is exact, because 8.5 and 14 are whole inches.
DPI
Legal in pixels
Appropriate for
The trade-off
72
612 × 1008 px
PDF page boxes and point-based layout.
A Legal PDF reports this page box no matter what resolution the images inside it hold. Useful to recognise, not something to export at.
Enough to read a 10 pt clause at 100 % on a standard display. Double it for a high-density screen.
150
1275 × 2100 px
Drafts, mark-up copies, anything read once and discarded.
Hairline table rules and 8 pt fine print begin to break up on paper somewhere below 200 DPI.
200
1700 × 2800 px
Document scanners, records archives, e-filed and faxed copies.
The default in most scanning software and a workable floor for OCR of 10 pt text. Poor originals and smaller type need 300.
300
2550 × 4200 px
Contracts, certificates, forms — printed and read up close.
About 10.7 megapixels per page, roughly 27 % more than a Letter page at the same resolution.
600
5100 × 8400 px
Signature capture, engraved seals, small print, OCR of damaged originals.
About 42.8 megapixels and near 129 MB uncompressed per page. A twenty-page bundle at this setting is not an email attachment.
Landscape swaps each pair — 4200 × 2550 px at 300 DPI, for instance. The DPI, the physical sheet and the total pixel count all stay the same.
Frequently asked questions
What is Legal size in pixels at 72, 150 and 300 DPI?
Portrait Legal is 612 × 1008 px at 72 DPI, 1275 × 2100 px at 150 DPI and 2550 × 4200 px at 300 DPI. Landscape swaps each pair — 1008 × 612, 2100 × 1275 and 4200 × 2550. The values are exact, because 8.5 and 14 inches multiply cleanly by every standard DPI.
What is the difference between Legal and Letter paper?
Only the height. Both are 8.5 inches wide, but Legal is 14 inches tall against Letter's 11 — three extra inches, or 76.2 mm. At 300 DPI that is 2550 × 4200 px versus 2550 × 3300 px, so a Letter layout dropped onto Legal keeps its width and leaves 900 px of empty space at the bottom.
What is long bond paper size in pixels?
Long bond is 8.5 × 13 in (215.9 × 330.2 mm), the standard used by Philippine government offices and schools. That works out to 612 × 936 px at 72 DPI, 1275 × 1950 px at 150 DPI and 2550 × 3900 px at 300 DPI. It sits between Letter and Legal, which is exactly why printing a long bond file on Legal paper leaves an inch of blank strip at the foot of the page.
Is short bond paper the same as Letter size?
Yes — short bond is 8.5 × 11 in, the same sheet US offices call Letter, so 612 × 792 px at 72 DPI, 1275 × 1650 px at 150 DPI and 2550 × 3300 px at 300 DPI. Bond originally described the paper stock rather than a size, but in the Philippines "short" and "long" became the everyday names for 8.5 × 11 and 8.5 × 13.
When do I actually need 300 DPI for a Legal document?
When it gets printed and read up close — contracts, forms, certificates, anything with fine print or a signature block. Below roughly 200 DPI, hairline rules and 8 pt type start to look soft on paper. A contract that only ever gets emailed or e-signed does not need 4200 px of height; 150 DPI keeps it sharp on screen at a quarter of the file size.
Which pixel size should I use for a Legal-size page that stays on screen?
Design at 96 DPI (816 × 1344 px) if the page is meant to be viewed at 100 % on a standard display, and double it to 192 DPI for a retina-crisp export. The old 72 DPI figure of 612 × 1008 px is worth knowing for a different reason: PDF measures in 72-per-inch points, so a Legal PDF reports its page box as 612 × 1008 regardless of the resolution of anything inside it.
How big is the text block on a Legal page with one-inch margins?
6.5 × 12 inches — 1950 × 3600 px at 300 DPI, or 468 × 864 pt in a PDF. Against the same margins on Letter (6.5 × 9 in) that is three extra inches of body copy on the identical width, which is the entire practical reason the format exists: schedules, clause lists and signature blocks that would otherwise spill onto another page.
What resolution should I scan a Legal-size contract at?
200 DPI (1700 × 2800 px) for archiving and OCR of ordinary 10 pt text — it is the default in most scanning software for good reason, because it stays legible while keeping a long bundle manageable. Move to 300 DPI (2550 × 4200 px) when the scan will be reprinted, when the original is faint or annotated, or when the fine print runs below 8 pt.
Why does my Legal document come out shrunk or cropped?
Because the printer is feeding Letter. With no 14-inch paper in the tray, the driver either crops the last three inches — 900 px at 300 DPI, which is usually the signature block — or scales the page to fit at 78.6 %, since 11 ÷ 14 is 0.786. Scaling keeps everything on the sheet but drops 10 pt body text to about 7.9 pt and moves every margin. Load Legal stock or extend the tray rather than fixing it in the file.
What pixel size does a faxed Legal page come through at?
1734 × 2744 px in Group 3 fine mode. Fax does not use square pixels: fine mode samples at 204 dpi horizontally and 196 dpi vertically, and standard mode drops the vertical figure to 98 dpi. That is why a received fax can look subtly stretched until software corrects the aspect ratio, and why faxed fine print is often unreadable no matter how good the original was.
Is Legal the same as F4 or Folio paper?
No, and the three are easy to confuse. Legal is 8.5 × 14 in (2550 × 4200 px at 300 DPI). F4, also called Folio and widely used across South and Southeast Asia, is 210 × 330 mm — 2480 × 3898 px, so it shares A4’s narrower width and runs about an inch shorter than Legal. Printing an F4 layout on Legal stock leaves a blank strip at the foot and 70 px of unused width down one side.