When viewing a U.S. letter-sized document (8.5” × 11”) on an iPad, the entire page is scaled down to fit the width of the screen. Here’s the math behind how much smaller it appears.
Step 1: iPad Screen Dimensions
As an example, the 13” iPad Pro’s display has a 2752-by-2064-pixel resolution at 264 ppi (pixels per inch), according to Apple specs:
Note
While the iPad’s native resolution is 2752-by-2064 (landscape, 4:3), we want portrait orientation here, so the resolution is rotated and the aspect ratio becomes 3:4.
Step 2: Scaling the Document to Fit the iPad
We’re scaling the 8.5” width of the letter page to fit the 7.818” screen width:
This means the height of the page is scaled proportionally:
Which fits comfortably within the iPad’s 10.424” screen height.
To express the scale factor as a linear reduction:
Since area scales with the square of linear dimensions, we estimate the area reduction as:
Conclusion
So when you view a full 8.5” × 11” document on a 13” iPad Pro in portrait mode:
- It appears about 8% smaller in width and height than the real size.
- The total visible area is reduced by roughly 15.4% compared to holding the same page on paper.
Current iPad Models
Here are the results for all iPad models that are currently for sale (as of 2025-04-16), with dimensions shown in portrait mode:
| iPad Model | Display Size | Resolution (px) | PPI | Screen Dimensions | Letter Page Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| iPad Pro 13-inch | 13” | 2752 × 2064 | 264 | 7.818” × 10.424” | 92.0% |
| iPad Pro 11-inch | 11.1” | 2420 × 1668 | 264 | 6.318” × 9.167” | 74.3% |
| iPad Air 13-inch | 12.9” | 2732 × 2048 | 264 | 7.758” × 10.348” | 91.3% |
| iPad Air 11-inch | 10.86” | 2360 × 1640 | 264 | 6.212” × 8.939” | 73.1% |
| iPad | 10.86” | 2360 × 1640 | 264 | 6.212” × 8.939” | 73.1% |
| iPad mini | 8.3” | 2266 × 1448 | 326 | 4.442” × 6.951” | 52.3% |