Make your bulletin board letters
Up to 12 characters. Each letter gets its own sheets.
Measured on the letter itself, from its top edge to its bottom edge.
The overlap is printed on both sheets, so the join lines up even if the cut wanders.
A 12 inch block letter A prints on 4 US Letter sheets. Type your own letter to see how it splits.
Print at 100% (Actual size). Fit to page shrinks every sheet and the letter comes out smaller. Each sheet carries a 1 inch bar to check against a ruler.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded.
How many sheets each height takes
Pre-cut bulletin board letters come in a few fixed sizes. Here you choose the height, from 3 inches to 8 feet, and print only the letters you need. These counts are for the block style as an outline with the standard ½ inch overlap. A wide letter like W needs more sheets than a narrow one like I, and the preview counts your own letters as you type.
| Height | A on Letter | A on A4 | W on Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 in 15 cm | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 in 20 cm | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 12 in 30 cm | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 18 in 46 cm | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| 24 in 61 cm | 12 | 12 | 15 |
| 36 in 91 cm | 24 | 24 | 30 |
| 48 in 122 cm | 40 | 40 | 50 |
Putting the sheets together
- Lay the sheets out in order. The small map at the top corner of each sheet shows where it goes, and row 1, column 1 is the top left.
- Every sheet with a dashed CUT line on its left or top edge goes on top of its neighbor. Cut along that line.
- Lay the cut edge on the neighbor's "Line up" line. The letter's outline runs straight across the join when it is in place.
- Tape the join from the back, then cut around the outside of the letter.
No ink is printed in the outer 0.4 inch of a sheet, so a printer that cannot reach the edge of the paper never cuts into the letter.
Getting the size right
The height you type is the height of the ink, from the top of the tallest letter to the bottom of the lowest one, outline included. A 12 inch letter is 12 inches against a ruler. Font sizes are not used for this, because a font size is the height of a box that is larger than the capital letters it holds.
The PDF asks the print dialog for actual size. Some dialogs still default to Fit to page, which shrinks every sheet. The bar near the bottom of each sheet is exactly 1 inch long (2 cm when you work in centimeters), so one measurement after the first sheet prints tells you whether to reprint the rest.
Paper, ink and putting them up
The outline style on colored cardstock uses the least ink: cut along the outline and the paper color fills the letter. Filled letters on white paper read from further away but use a lot of black ink at large sizes. For a stencil you paint through, print on card and cut out the letter, leaving the thin bridges in place. Laminated letters come down and go back up for the next display.