What Is A5 Size in Pixels?

"I sent the file, it went to print, and when it arrived the edges were white."

We've heard that sentence more times than we can count. It's one of the most common print headaches: a customer prepares an "A5" file in Photoshop, we open it and the size is wrong. Some mix up cm and mm, some enter the wrong pixels, and some have never heard of bleed.

In this article we explain A5's real size, its pixel equivalent for print and screen, and what each DPI gives you. At the end there's a shortcut that saves you the maths.

First Things First: How Big Is A5?

A5 is an A4 sheet folded exactly in half. Fold A4 in half and you get A5; fold A5 in half and you get A6. Once you remember this, the A series will never confuse you again. Full table in A4, A3 and A5 paper sizes.

So How Many Pixels, and What Changes With DPI?

This is where it gets confusing, because "how many pixels is A5?" has no single answer. It depends on what you'll use it for.

For screen / web (72-96 DPI)

For a website, social media or an email attachment:

For print (300 DPI, the standard printers expect)

This is critical. Anything going to print should be 300 DPI, otherwise it looks blurry and pixelated. More in 72 DPI vs 300 DPI.

Memorise this: A5 print = 1748 x 2480 px at 300 DPI.

"I Set 300 DPI and It Still Got Rejected": Bleed

Here's the secret many people miss. A printer doesn't want just the exact 148 x 210 mm. Even with precise cutting, stacked sheets can shift by 1-2 mm, so you need extra margin. This is called bleed.

We've seen it many times: a customer sends exactly 148 x 210 mm with a coloured background, the cut shifts 1 mm and a thin white strip appears at the edge. The customer says "you printed it wrong", but the file was incomplete from the start.

The right way:

• Trim size: 148 x 210 mm
• Working size with bleed: 154 x 216 mm (+3 mm on each edge)
• 300 DPI pixels (with bleed): 1819 x 2551 px

Extend backgrounds, images and colours across the full 154 x 216 mm area. Keep important elements like text and logos at least 3-5 mm inside the trim line; this is the safe zone. Without it, a slight shift can cut your logo in half.

CMYK or RGB? Another Story

If the bright orange on your screen prints as a dull mustard, the culprit is the colour mode, not the template. Screens use RGB; presses print in CMYK. Send RGB and it gets converted automatically, but colours won't match the screen. Convert every print file to CMYK before saving.

3 Common Mistakes (We've Seen Them All)

1. Mixing up cm and mm: typing "14.8 x 21" in Photoshop with the unit still set to inches, creating a huge file nobody notices until print.
2. Leaving resolution at 72 DPI: placing a downloaded image in an A5 template and enlarging it. Looks fine on screen, prints blurry.
3. Sending files without bleed: white edges or cut-off logos are guaranteed.

Skip the Maths: We Built the Calculator

Converting mm to pixels, adding bleed and setting DPI by hand every time wastes time. That's why we built our automatic template tool. Choose your size, A5 or anything else, and it calculates bleed, the right DPI and the safe zone, giving you a print-ready PDF template in seconds.

Most of these sizing headaches are exactly what we solve every day for label printing customers.

In Summary

• A5 for print = 1748 x 2480 px, 300 DPI
• Working size with bleed = 1819 x 2551 px
• Colour mode: CMYK
• Keep everything important inside the safe zone

Follow these four points and your printer won't send your file back. Prefer to start from a ready template? The tool above does the maths for you.