ShipLabelCrop

How to Print a Shipping Label on a 4×6 Thermal Printer

If your shipping label prints tiny in the corner, gets cut off, or the barcode won't scan, the culprit is almost always paper-size scaling — not your printer. Follow these steps once and it stays fixed.

The 4 steps

  1. Download your label as a PDF from your marketplace or carrier (Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Vinted, Shopify, DHL, UPS, USPS, FedEx). If the only options are A4 or Letter, that's fine — step 2 handles it.
  2. Crop it to 4×6. Open the free label cropper, drop in your PDF, check the auto-detected crop box, and download the 4×6 inch version. This removes the single biggest cause of mis-sized prints: an A4 page being squeezed onto 4×6 stock.
  3. Set the paper size to 4×6 in (101.6×152.4 mm) and scaling to 100%. In the print dialog:
    • Paper size: 4"×6" (101.6×152.4 mm — some drivers list it as 100×150 mm, a slightly smaller size)
    • Scale: 100% / "Actual size" — turn off "Fit to page", "Shrink to fit", or "Fit to printable area"
    • Orientation: Portrait, unless your label is visibly landscape
    Most thermal printers (Rollo, Dymo, Munbyn and similar) have no screen — every setting lives in your computer's print dialog or the vendor's app. On Windows: Settings → Devices → Printers → your printer → Printing preferences → paper size 4×6. On Mac: print dialog → Paper Size → 4×6. In Chrome: print → More settings → Paper size.
  4. Print one test label and scan the barcode with your phone before running the whole batch. If it scans, you're done — these settings persist.

Troubleshooting

Label prints too small (tiny, in the corner)

This is the classic symptom of an A4/Letter PDF printed on 4×6 stock, or "Fit to page" shrinking everything. Fix: crop the PDF to 4×6 first, then print with paper size 4×6 and scale at 100%.

Label is cut off at the edges

Paper-size mismatch: the printer thinks the stock is 4×6 but the PDF page is still A4/Letter, so content outside the 4×6 area is clipped. Fix: use the cropped 4×6 PDF and set the paper size to 4×6 — both must match.

Barcode prints but won't scan

Scaling is the usual suspect: when a label is shrunk to fit, the bars get thinner than the scanner's minimum and the bar/space ratio breaks. Fix: reprint from the cropped PDF at exactly 100% scale. If it still fails, raise the printer's print density/darkness one notch — faint bars also fail to scan.

Label prints sideways

Orientation mismatch between the PDF and the printer setting. Fix: match the orientation to the label (most shipping labels are portrait) in the print dialog.

Blank label feeds between prints

The printer needs calibration for the new stock. Fix: with labels loaded, press and hold the feed button until it feeds correctly (check your model's manual — on most Rollo/Dymo-style printers it's a 3–5 second hold).

Prints fine from one app but not another

Paper-size and scaling settings are per-application on most systems. Fix: set 4×6 + 100% in each app you print from (browser, PDF reader, shipping software).

Still stuck on the cropping step? Crop your label to 4×6 here — free, no upload, no watermark.