Paper Size Tolerance

There are two main paper size standards used throughout the world - ISO 216 and North American sizes. These standards define paper sizes by name e.g. A4 = 210×297mm, Letter = 8.5×11in, etc.

Different print drivers report paper sizes in different ways. Some report a name, like “US_LETTER”, and others report dimensions (in a range of different units). These units do not always exactly match an official paper size. Because of this, PaperCut has a built in tolerance to accommodate discrepancies. This allows PaperCut to report a standard paper size when the dimensions are ‘close enough’, rather than reporting a custom size.

By default PaperCut has a 3% tolerance to paper size differences. This has been found to be the most effective tolerance in most installations.

Changing the Paper Size Tolerance

The paper size tolerance can be changed to help in situations where the default tolerance is not enough. (Note: requires PaperCut 14.2 or newer)

IMPORTANT: Take care when using the Config Editor. If you use the Config Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems which can only be fixed by the re-installation of the application.

The PaperCut manual has additional instructions for Using the Config Editor.

To change the paper size tolerance:

1. Login to the PaperCut admin interface.
2. Navigate to Options → Actions → Config editor (advanced).
3. Find the print.paper-size-tolerance-percent config key.
4. Edit the config value. The range is 0.0 to 20.0, representing a percentage. E.g. 3.0 = 3%
5. Press Update button next to the value to apply the change.

TIP: Setting this config key to 6.0 allows Letter paper size to be scaled to A4 paper size as there is a 5.936% difference between the two. This means that iPads should be able to print from any app regardless of default paper size.