A4 PAPER for printing train tickets

Have you printed them on US standard paper? The size of the paper is not important just as long as the ticket can be printed in full, you'll probably find that if you select 'print to fit' on your printer it will resize to fit US standard.

When I print a boarding pass from the German Lufthansa Web site, which is designed for printing on A4 (210 x 297 mm), on US-letter (215.9 x 279.4 mm), all that happens is that upper and lower margins are a bit smaller and left and right margins a bit wider than on A4. So you should not have any problem with a train ticket either.

8 1/2 by 11 will work just fine.

just don't cut off the QR code or barcode.

You won't have any trouble.

No one - I repeat, no one -involved in the ticket taking or verification process is going to be look to see the minuscule difference in size between the two papers. These sites are merely emphasizing their standard so that everything is large enough. Prining it on paper half that size, with it correspondingly 1/2 that size, might cause a scanning issue.

Two options:

1. Print it on standard US letter size paper at home allowing it to be sized to fit that paper.

2. Wait until you get to Europe and print at your hotel.

If you need your ticket immediately on arrival, option 2 will not work. I have always printed things at home on standard US paper without issues for all my European trips.

European A4 and US Letter Size are close enough that your ticket should work. You can print either with no scalling or "to fit" and it should work as long as you print the entire bar code. If you are still worried, print one copy at "to fit" and the other at "full scale".

Printing on 8.5 x 11 instead of A4 is just fine. It will not cause you any problems.

It's as simple as that!

If you need A4 you can order it for pickup at your local Staples, but regular paper will be ok

I've always used 8.5 x 11 since I did not know what A4 was. No DB controller ever questioned it.

It will not be an issue as everyone has indicated , but since I am a stickler for details , I bought a ream of it from Amazon some years ago for about ten dollars .

As mentioned, A4 is the standard-size paper in Europe and hence the reason this is used in the instructions, but if it said "printed on a sheet of paper" would be all the same. In the US, they would have used Letter instead, but it doesn't mean you actually need an A4 size paper, just a paper of similar size (and Letter is).

Like Fred, I've I traveled Deutsche Bahn as well as Eurostar with tickets printed on letter size and never had an issue.

If there's a QR code and a barcode at the top and bottom of the page and you're really concerned about the length of the page, print it at 100% on legal paper and trim off the bottom.

I would caution against shrinking the image to fit the page: depending on the symbology, some barcodes don't scan so easily when resized.

I have printed dozen of tickets on standard US letter size paper with no problem. The difference is so small as to be insignificant. A4 paper is slightly narrower so it fits fine on the wider US paper and A4 is longer by about half inch or so. A wider margin on the bottom. Since tickets do not take up the full page from top to down, it makes no difference.

https://www.gtin.info/upc/

UPC SIZING REQUIREMENTS

UPC sizes are referred to as magnifications or magnification factors.
The nominal size of a UPC is 100% magnification factor or 1.469 inches
wide (from the far left hand side number to the far right hand side
number) by 1.02 inches tall (from the top of the bar code to the
bottom of the human readable numbers). The minimum size of a UPC is
80% magnification factor (80% of the nominal size) and the maximum
size of a UPC is 200% magnification factor (200% of the nominal
size).

I am sorry Edgar, what does that have to do with the question asked???? No expansion or compression of the image to fit the paper. Just doesn't apply.

I am about to book train tickets for travel in Budapest and Vienna.
The instructions say to print the tickets on A4 paper, which is not
standard in the US.

You will be fine with 8 1/2" x 11" paper.

That was a concern I had years ago until I could upload rail tickets to my iPhone. Does the rail company offer you that option? If so, you might want to consider that option.

Frank,
If you scale to fit when printing, as long the UPC barcode is within 80% to 200% of what it should be it should scan correctly. That is scaling a A4 to "letter size" will work.

But the point is --- there is no need to scale between A-4 and standard US letter size.

Yes, you don't need to scale to fit if you don't mind a little trucation/cropping. But if you scale to fit the A4 length of 11.69" to the 11' letter size, you would need to print 94% to fit with zero margins. If you do scale, the UPC bar code should still scan properly. The bottom line is scale or don't scale as long as you print the full UPC bar code and don't worry.

Oh my gosh all of this technical information is not necessary!!!! Nor is printing on legal-sized paper and cutting!!

You can print the ticket JUST FINE on 8.5 x 11. It will be accepted. There is no need to worry about any of the rest of this.

My point exactly -- Kim !!! Why do we continue to beat this dead horse?

A4 and U.S. letter paper are quite close in size.

When the you see guidance imploring you to print something on A4 size, what they're really saying is don't print this out on a post-card sized piece of paper. Print it out on a full sheet of paper so our scanner can read the barcode and our employee can read the text.

A train employee would have to bring with them a ruler and more time than they have available to discern the difference between A4 and 8.5x11.

Set your default paper size to A4 and print away on 8.5 x 11 paper. It is not going to be a problem.

Yes Frank I know you get it!!!