Flyers · Glossary
What DPI should a flyer be?
About 150 pixels per inch at the finished size is enough for a flyer, which for A4 means a canvas of roughly 1,240 by 1,754 pixels. The 300 figure people quote comes from photographic printing, where the piece is inspected at close range, and it produces files four times the size for a difference most readers never see.
Resolution advice online is mostly repeated from print shop templates written for photo books. A leaflet is a different object, read differently.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
3 min read · Published
Reading distance sets the number
The eye resolves less detail further away. A photograph held at thirty centimetres justifies 300 pixels per inch; a leaflet held at arm's length does not, and a poster on a wall needs far less again. Matching the density to the distance is the whole of the decision, and it is why a single universal number was always going to be wrong.
Where resolution genuinely matters
In the photographs you place, not in the canvas. A picture uploaded at 400 pixels wide and stretched across half an A4 page will look soft whatever the canvas density is, because the pixels are not there to begin with. Getting the source images right matters far more than the export setting, and it is the actual cause of most disappointing prints.
Type is vector, and stays sharp
Text and icons are drawn as shapes rather than pixels, so they stay crisp at any output size. That is why a flyer at 150 pixels per inch still has clean lettering: the density is only doing work for the photographs. It is also why an icon is a better choice than a small picture of a symbol whenever you have the option.
Questions people ask
Will my printer complain about 150 DPI?
Some will, because their standard specification is written for photographic work. Tell them the finished size and the pixel dimensions rather than the density, since 1,240 by 1,754 for A4 is a number they can evaluate directly. If they still object, ask what visible difference they expect at reading distance.
My photo looks soft in the print. Why?
Almost certainly the source image, not the canvas. A picture that was small to begin with cannot gain detail by being placed on a denser page. Replace it with a larger original; as a rule of thumb you want at least as many pixels as the printed area will occupy at 150 per inch.
Should I export at a higher density just in case?
It costs you file size and processing time and buys nothing your reader can see. The exception is if the same artwork will also be blown up to poster size, in which case design it at the larger size from the start rather than upscaling later.
Does DPI affect the colours?
No. Density is about detail; colour is about the profile and the paper. If your printed colours look wrong, the conversation to have with the shop is about colour management and a proof, not about resolution.
Is DPI the same as PPI?
They get used interchangeably in everyday conversation, and for this purpose they mean the same thing: how many pixels of your file land in each inch of the printed piece. Strictly, dots per inch describes the printer's own dot pattern, which is a different and usually much larger number.
Make one with flyers
The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own.
Create a flyer with OneCraftRelated questions
- What is bleed?Bleed is extra image beyond the trim line so a slightly off cut leaves no white edge. When a flyer needs it, and when a clear margin is the better answer.
- A4 flyer size in pixelsA4 is 210 by 297 mm. In pixels it depends on the density: 1240 by 1754 at 150 DPI is the practical working size for a flyer.
- Instagram post and story sizesA square post is 1080 by 1080 and a story is 1080 by 1920. What the safe area is, why the crop happens, and how one design becomes both.
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .