How to Resize Word Documents for Printing

Follow these steps to select a specific paper size when printing a document.

Open the Word document you want to print and select the File tab. Select Print. By default, the paper size of the document defaults to the paper size of the printed output. Select the Paper size drop-down arrow and choose the output you prefer. To print a letter-sized document on A5-sized paper, select Letter then choose A5. The thumbnail of the first page of the printed output resizes to match. You cannot rescale the document to fit the paper. If the document is larger than the paper, then the document will tile on several sheets. Select Print to print the document when you’re satisfied with the output settings.

To print a document to a different-sized paper while maintaining the original dimensions and ensuring it fits on one sheet, print the document to PDF. Once you have created a PDF from the Word document, print a hardcopy using the printer.

The PDF printer driver supports more resizing and restructuring output options than any word processing application does.