Print a PDF sewing pattern from an iPad at 100%

Problem 1: you can't hide sizes on an iPad

Files, Books and Safari have no layer controls, so you print whatever they draw, which for a layered pattern usually means every size stacked on each page. Acrobat Reader on the iPad doesn't help either: asked about sewing patterns in 2023, an Adobe community expert confirmed that layers are "a feature available on the desktop version of the application and not mobile".

The way round it is to change the file rather than the app. Print only your size runs in Safari on the iPad, lists the pattern's layers and saves a copy with the other sizes removed. Every page keeps its original size.

Step by step on the iPad

1. Save the pattern to Files. From the shop's email or download page, tap the PDF and choose Save to Files, or keep it in Downloads.
2. Open the tool in Safari and tap Open your PDF pattern. Choose the file from Files. The preview stays at the top of the screen while you scroll the layer list.
3. Keep your size. Tap only next to your size, or tick two sizes to grade between them. Leave notes, labels and the test square on.
4. Download the copy. Safari saves it to Downloads. Open it from Files, tap the share button and choose Print.
5. Print one page first. In the print options, set the range to the page with the test square, pick the paper that's loaded (Letter or A4) if your printer lists paper sizes, and print.
6. Measure the square. If it's right, print the remaining pages with the same settings. If not, use the table below.

Problem 2: the print sheet has no scale setting

On a computer you pick Actual size. On an iPad the print options come from the printer through AirPrint, and an iPadOS user asking how to stop a 15 × 15 cm image being scaled was told the options "will be determined principally by your AirPrint printer's capabilities". Canon's AirPrint manual adds that when the paper settings on the iPad differ from those registered on the printer, the printer's own settings win. In practice a page that doesn't match the paper, or that runs into the printer's margins, is shrunk to fit.

Shrinking always follows the same arithmetic, so the test square tells you what happened:

Letter is 215.9 × 279.4 mm and A4 is 210 × 297 mm. Fitting one onto the other scales by the tighter side: 279.4 ÷ 297 = 94.1% and 210 ÷ 215.9 = 97.3%.

If the square keeps printing small

• Match the paper to the pattern. If the pattern's home-printer file is A4 and your tray holds Letter, the iPad shrinks it by about 6%. Use the Letter file if the designer supplied one.
• Tile the copy-shop file onto your paper. Most patterns also include an A0 or 36 × 48 in sheet. With Pro tiling the tool cuts that sheet into pages of exactly your paper size, with margins inside the printable area, so nothing needs fitting.
• Try the printer maker's app. Some printer apps have their own print settings. Look for 100%, Actual size, or a Fit to page option you can turn off.
• Print from a computer or a copy shop. A Mac, Windows PC or Chromebook lets you choose 100% directly. A copy shop can print the A0 file at full size.

Grading between sizes on the iPad

Tick both sizes you need, for example 10 at the bust and 12 at the waist. The copy contains both outlines in their original colours and line styles, so you can blend between them with a ruler before cutting.