Print guide

Choosing a size, and printing it well

Every design is laid out for the exact sheet you choose. Here is what each size suits, how the studio keeps names readable, and how to get a clean print from a shop or at home.

Sizes

Supported print sizes

Every size works in portrait or landscape; square sizes are the same either way. Custom sizes can be anything from 5 to 48 inches on each side.

Sizes are shown in portrait; landscape swaps width and height.
Size	Type	Inches	Millimetres	Starting size for
8 × 10 in	US frame	8 × 10 in	203 × 254 mm	—
11 × 14 in	US frame	11 × 14 in	279 × 356 mm	—
12 × 16 in	US frame	12 × 16 in	305 × 406 mm	—
16 × 20 in	US frame	16 × 20 in	406 × 508 mm	Grandma’s Growing Family, 50 Years, One Family
18 × 24 in	US frame	18 × 24 in	457 × 610 mm	Ancestor Heritage, Photo Legacy
20 × 30 in	US frame	20 × 30 in	508 × 762 mm	—
24 × 36 in	US frame	24 × 36 in	610 × 914 mm	Reunion Family Set
A4	ISO paper	8.27 × 11.69 in	210 × 297 mm	—
A3	ISO paper	11.69 × 16.54 in	297 × 420 mm	—
A2	ISO paper	16.54 × 23.39 in	420 × 594 mm	—
A1	ISO paper	23.39 × 33.11 in	594 × 841 mm	—
12 × 12 in	Square	12 × 12 in	305 × 305 mm	—
16 × 16 in	Square	16 × 16 in	406 × 406 mm	—
20 × 20 in	Square	20 × 20 in	508 × 508 mm	—
Custom	Your size	5–48 in a side	127–1219 mm a side	—

Readability

Names that can be read from where you stand

Vector artwork scales without blurring, but text does not grow by itself: the same tree on a smaller sheet simply has smaller names. So instead of guessing from the number of people, the studio measures the printed height of every name at the size you have chosen.

When names would be too small to read comfortably, it says so, and you can choose a larger sheet, fewer generations, a narrower branch, or fewer details per person. For the largest families, the reunion set spreads the tree across branch sheets instead of shrinking it.

Read up close — on a desk or a hallway wall — 8 × 10 or 11 × 14 in suits a small family.
For a living-room wall or a bigger family, 18 × 24 in and up gives names room to breathe.
For a reunion display read from a few steps away, choose the largest size your printer or shop offers.

Photographs

Photo resolution

A photo that looks sharp on a phone can look soft when printed large. For each portrait the studio works out its effective resolution — how many pixels land on each printed inch — at the size it will actually appear, and flags photos that will print soft.

As a rule of thumb, around 300 pixels per inch looks crisp in the hand, and around 150 is usually fine for a large print seen from across a room. When a photo is too small, scan the original at a higher setting, use a larger copy, or choose a smaller print size.

Printing

Getting a clean print

Which file to send

Send the PDF. It is vector artwork made at the exact size you chose, with fonts embedded, so a print shop can reproduce it at full sharpness. PNG and JPG files are labelled with their real resolution; at the very largest sizes a browser may not be able to make a 300 PPI image, and the studio tells you the resolution it made rather than rounding up.

Print at actual size

Ask for printing at 100% with no scaling, and at home turn off “fit to page”. The proof sheet in the print bundle carries a ruler at actual size: measure it after printing to confirm nothing was scaled.

Paper

A heavyweight matte or fine-art paper suits every style and avoids glare behind glass. Most home printers stop at Letter or A4, so larger sizes are best printed by a local or online print shop.

Framing

The US sizes match common ready-made frames, and the A-sizes match European frames. A mat adds breathing room and lets you use a frame one size up.

Before you print

Go through the proof list of names and dates.
Ask someone else to check spellings — especially maiden names and places.
Print the proof sheet on ordinary paper first to check text size at actual scale.

Begin

Pick a size in the studio.

The layout re-flows for every size, and the readability check speaks up before you print.

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