Templates Paper & Print

US Legal

8.5 x 14 in CMYK 1.65:1 portrait

An 8.5 by 14 in (216 by 356 mm) US Legal sheet. Same width as Letter, three inches taller, used for contracts and long-form legal documents in the US and Canada.

8.5 x 14 in

about the size of a tabloid sheet

About this size

Legal exists for one practical reason: long contracts read more naturally on a taller page than on multiple Letter pages stapled together. The format survived the move to digital because legal practice is conservative and because the printed contract is still the canonical artifact in many transactions.

Outside North America the format is unfamiliar. International recipients usually expect A4, and Legal sized documents either get cropped or rescaled on the receiving end, which is rarely what the sender intended.

  • Legal documents
  • Forms
  • Long worksheets

Pro tips

  1. 1 Many printers require switching paper trays or manual feed for Legal. Confirm before sending to print or the job stalls at the printer.
  2. 2 For international workflows, share a Letter version alongside Legal. A4 cannot reproduce Legal without scaling, and the scaling rarely lands well.
  3. 3 Margins on Legal often need to be larger than Letter because the eye travels further down the page. Cramped margins read as denser, not as efficient.

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