QR code cropped by a printer

Two different crops, one symptom

A printer damages an edge-placed QR code in two distinct ways:

1. Hardware margin clipping. Most inkjet and laser printers physically cannot print the outer 3–5 mm of the sheet — paper transport and fusing need somewhere to grip. Content in that band is silently discarded; no warning, no error.
2. Rescaling. The driver "helpfully" shrinks or enlarges the page to reconcile your layout with its printable area, changing the code's physical size — and therefore its scan distance.

Either alone is enough. Remember that clipping just the blank margin already kills the code: the quiet zone is a required 4-module band, not decoration.

Borderless mode is not the rescue

Borderless printing works by overscanning — enlarging the artwork a few per cent so ink bleeds past every edge. Two consequences for a QR code near an edge:

• content close to the edge is pushed off the paper rather than clipped by it — same loss, different mechanism;
• the whole page prints slightly larger than designed, so a code sized precisely for its scan distance no longer matches the layout maths (usually survivable, but worth knowing when tolerances are tight).

"Fit to page" silently changes size

When the driver scales your page down to fit inside its printable area, everything shrinks by roughly 4–6%. A 30 mm code becomes about 28.5 mm. On its own that is rarely fatal — but combined with a payload near the density limit or a marginal scan distance, it is the invisible last straw. Always select 100% / Actual size in the print dialog, and fix the layout instead of letting the driver improvise.

The safe-area rules

• Keep the code — including its quiet zone — at least 10 mm from every paper edge or trim line. That clears the hardware margin of effectively every desktop printer with room to spare.
• Print at 100% scale, never "Fit" or "Shrink to printable area".
• For professional print with bleed, the code belongs firmly inside the safe area and never in the bleed — the full geometry is at bleed, trim and safe area.
• If the code sits at the edge in the source file too, that is a different fault: see cut off in a PDF.

The one-minute proof

Print a single copy, then check three things: measure the code with a ruler (does it match the designed width?), confirm all four quiet zones survived, and scan it from the intended distance. Our validator checks the artwork side — margin, contrast, decodability — before paper is involved, and the size calculator confirms the width you should be measuring.

FAQ

Why does my printer cut off part of the QR code?

The outer 3–5 mm of the sheet is physically unprintable on most desktop printers, and anything placed there is silently discarded. Move the code at least 10 mm inside the edge.

Should I use borderless printing to stop the clipping?

No. Borderless mode enlarges the artwork so it bleeds past the paper edges, which pushes edge content off the sheet instead of clipping it, and slightly changes the printed size. Reposition the code inside the safe area instead.

Does "fit to page" affect QR codes?

Yes — it rescales the whole document, typically shrinking it 4–6% to fit the printable area. That changes the code's physical size and scan distance. Print at 100% and design within the margins instead.

How close to the edge of the paper can a QR code be?

Keep 10 mm between any paper edge or trim line and the code's quiet zone. That covers desktop printer margins, slight paper misfeeds and guillotine tolerance in one rule.