Toolman

Mass Market in pixels

1275 × 2061 px

at 300 DPI, the print standard · Mass Market is 107.95 × 174.5 mm · 2.6 megapixels

Mass Market at every resolution

A sheet of paper has no pixel size of its own. It has a physical size — 107.95 × 174.5 mm, or 4.25 × 6.87 inches — and a pixel count only appears once you choose how many pixels go in each inch.

ResolutionPixelsMegapixelsUncompressed 24-bitUse
72 DPI306 × 4950.2 MP0.4 MBScreen only — visibly soft in print
96 DPI408 × 6600.3 MP0.8 MBScreen only — visibly soft in print
150 DPI638 × 10310.7 MP1.9 MBDrafts, internal documents, large-format viewed from a distance
200 DPI850 × 13741.2 MP3.3 MBAcceptable for office printing
300 DPI1275 × 20612.6 MP7.5 MBThe commercial print standard
400 DPI1700 × 27484.7 MP13 MBFine detail and small type
600 DPI2550 × 412210.5 MP30 MBLine art, technical drawings, archival scanning
1200 DPI5100 × 824442.0 MP120 MBArchival and reproduction work

What the file size means for Mass Market

At 300 DPI an uncompressed Mass Market is 7.5 MB, and at 600 DPI it is 30 MB — four times as much, because doubling the resolution doubles both dimensions. That squaring is the reason large formats become unwieldy so quickly: the same 300 DPI that produces a manageable file at small sizes produces 7.5 MB here.

If a file is going to a printer, ask what they want before choosing. 300 DPI is the safe default and 150 is often enough for anything read from more than arm's length.

Setting up the canvas

Width:      1275 px
Height:     2061 px
Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Colour:     CMYK for print, RGB for screen
Bleed:      3 mm on every edge → 1346 × 2132 px

The bleed figure is the one people forget: artwork that runs to the edge must extend 3 mm past it on all four sides, so the working canvas is larger than the finished sheet.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mass Market in pixels?

There is no single answer — it depends on the resolution. At the print standard of 300 DPI, Mass Market is 1275 × 2061 pixels. On screen at 72 DPI it is only 306 × 495.

What resolution should an Mass Market document be?

300 DPI for anything going to a commercial printer, which makes the canvas 1275 × 2061 pixels. 150 DPI (638 × 1031) is acceptable for a draft or an internal document. Large formats read from a distance can go lower — a poster viewed from two metres looks sharp at 150 DPI, and dropping to it here saves 5.6 MB of file.

How big is an Mass Market file at 300 DPI?

About 7.5 MB uncompressed at 24-bit colour — 1275 × 2061 × 3 bytes. Compression brings that down a great deal for flat artwork and very little for a photograph, which is why a print-ready Mass Market PDF is usually tens of megabytes.

How many megapixels is Mass Market at 300 DPI?

2.6 megapixels. For comparison, Mass Market at 600 DPI is 10.5 MP — quadruple, because doubling the resolution doubles both dimensions.

Mass Market in millimetres, inches and points · All paper sizes · Screen resolutions