Flipkart 4×6 thermal labels: what actually prints on the roll
A Flipkart sheet arrives as A4 and a packing desk prints it on a 4 × 6 roll, so the label is rebuilt for the paper. That rebuild has numbers — the destination page, the scale it applies and the margin it leaves for a printer’s dead border — and this page publishes them. They come from the crop rules in this workspace, not from a Flipkart specification.
Crop a Flipkart PDFLabel size calculatorFour labels on one A4 sheet
4 × 6 in, in every unit: 101.6 × 152.4 mm, 288 × 432 pt, 812 × 1218 px
This page is about the destination, not the source. Flipkart sends an A4 sheet; the label block on it measures 225 × 355 pt. A 4 × 6 thermal roll is 288 × 432 pt. The gap between those two numbers is where every “prints small” and “prints cut off” complaint lives, and the figures below are the ones this crop applies rather than a guess about Flipkart’s printer.
| Unit | 4 × 6 thermal media | Flipkart label block | Exact-crop page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Millimetres | 101.6 × 152.4 mm | 79.4 × 125.2 mm | 79.4 × 130.9 mm |
| Inches | 4 × 6 in | 3.13 × 4.93 in | 3.13 × 5.15 in |
| Points | 288 × 432 pt | 225 × 355 pt | 225 × 371 pt |
| Pixels at 203 DPI | 812 × 1218 px | 634 × 1001 px | 634 × 1046 px |
| Pixels at 300 DPI | 1200 × 1800 px | 938 × 1479 px | 938 × 1546 px |
The “100 × 150 mm” on the box of a thermal roll is a round number for the same thing: 4 in is 101.6 mm and 6 in is 152.4 mm, so a nominal 100 × 150 mm label is 1.6 mm narrower and 2.4 mm shorter than the 4 × 6 it is sold as. That sounds like nothing until a print dialog snaps to a named paper size and rescales the page to it. Set the paper size by its millimetres, not by its name.
203 or 300 DPI: 8 dots per mm against 11.8
DPI is a property of the printer, not of the PDF. The Flipkart label is vector artwork, so it has no pixels until something rasterises it — which is the print driver, at whatever the head supports. 203 DPI is 203 dots in every inch, 8.0 per millimetre; 300 DPI is 11.8 per millimetre. The same 152.4 mm of roll is 1218 dots on a 203 DPI head and 1800 dots on a 300 DPI head.
A shipping barcode does not need 300 DPI. A Code 128 symbol needs every bar and space to be a whole number of printer dots, at least one dot wide — 0.125 mm at 203 DPI — and the failure that actually costs a scan is not resolution but scale: a barcode printed at 97% has modules that no longer land on whole dots. 300 DPI earns its price on the small things around the barcode: a 6.5 pt address line, a denser 2D code, the SKU and quantity footer. If your labels fail to scan, do not buy a printer; check the print scale first.
The 3–5 mm border a printer cannot reach — the number our first crop ignored
Our first Flipkart crop cut straight to the artwork, because on screen that is exactly the label. On paper it was not: a thermal or desk printer leaves a non-printable border of 3–5 mm, and that border ate the first character of the address and about 2 mm off the barcode. The crop looked perfect and the parcel came back. The fix was not a better box — it was a page with paper around the box.
| Layout | Output page | Label printed at | Paper around the label |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact crop · original dimensions | 225 × 371 pt | 79.4 mm wide (100%) | 8 pt (2.8 mm) above and below; sides flush |
| Thermal · 4 × 6 inches | 288 × 432 pt | 88.1 × 139.0 mm (111%) | 19 pt (6.7 mm) on all four sides |
| A4 · 4 labels per sheet | 595.3 × 841.9 pt | 88.8 × 140.0 mm (112%) | 19 pt top and bottom, 30 pt at the sides |
The exact crop is deliberately tight on the sides: the page is the measured block plus 8 pt above and below and nothing at the left or right. That is fine on a printer that reaches its edge, and it is not fine on a 5 mm border — which is why the 4 × 6 layout, with 19 pt on every side, is the one to use when the exact crop keeps clipping.
Where a 225 × 355 pt label lands on a 288 × 432 pt page: 111%, not 100%
The 4 × 6 layout does not shrink a Flipkart label to fit. The label is smaller than the media, so it grows. The crop reserves a 14 pt page margin plus a further 5 pt inset, which leaves a 250 × 394 pt cell, and fits the block into it with one scale for both axes: 225 × 355 becomes 249.7 × 394.0 pt — 88.1 × 139.0 mm, 111% of the measured size — centred with 19 pt (6.7 mm) of white on each side.
That enlargement is not a bug. A barcode printed 11% larger scans, where the same barcode shrunk by a print dialog does not. It does mean a ruler on the sticker reads 88 mm, not 79.4 mm, so “it is not the size I measured” is usually the layout working as intended. If you need the measured size, choose Exact crop: the label prints 79.4 mm wide on a 225 × 371 pt page.
The other setting that decides what lands on the roll: “Keep invoice”. If Print layout is Thermal · 4 × 6 inches and Keep invoice is ticked, each 4 × 6 page receives the whole A4 order — 595 × 715 pt of label and invoice — and 595 pt does not fit 250 pt. It is drawn at 42%, which puts the label at about 33 mm wide with an unscannable barcode. Untick it, or choose Label + invoice separate, and print the invoice on A4.
Actual size, Fit, and “shrink oversized pages”: the three settings that break a label
The output page is already the size of the paper you are printing on: 288 × 432 pt on the roll, 595 × 842 pt on A4. Any scaling left switched on in the dialog is therefore pure damage, because it moves every barcode module off the dot grid the printer can draw.
- Chrome and Edge: set Scale to 100% or choose “Actual size”, and turn off “Fit to printable area”. The default for a PDF opened in a tab is often Fit, which is how a correct crop prints 4% small.
- Windows thermal driver: Paper size 100 × 150 mm (or 4 × 6 in), Scaling None, and “Fit to page” unticked. Check the driver’s paper list before the batch, not after the first sticker jams.
- macOS: Scale 100%, “Scale to Fit” off, and the paper size set to the label rather than to A4. “Any Printer” is the setting that quietly substitutes a paper size.
One test print is enough to tell the difference: if the label is 88 mm wide the page printed correctly, if it is 79 mm you are looking at an exact crop, and if it is 33 mm something ticked “Keep invoice”. The label size calculator converts any roll you have into points and pixels if yours is not 4 × 6.
Barcode quiet zones: the 10-module strip you must not crop away
A Code 128 barcode needs at least 10 modules of clear white on each side — the quiet zone — before its first and after its last bar, or a scanner never finds where the symbol begins. At 203 DPI, if a module is two dots wide, ten modules is 2.5 mm of white on each side. The measured Flipkart block includes that white. A custom crop that “tightens the margins” around the bars is exactly how a label that looks clean stops scanning at the hub.
This is also the argument for the paper margins above. The 4 × 6 layout adds 6.7 mm on all four sides and the exact crop adds 2.8 mm above and below; both are there so the printer’s dead border lands on white, not on the quiet zone. Paper is cheap. A returned parcel is not.
Check the page size before a batch: four steps
- Crop one page with the Flipkart presetOpen the Flipkart cropper, set Pages to “First page only”, and choose “Thermal · 4 × 6 inches”. Untick “Keep invoice” so the page holds the label and not the whole A4 sheet.
- Read the page size of the downloadPage one should be 288 × 432 pt. If it is 595 × 842 pt you cropped an A4 layout, and the label was scaled with the sheet rather than onto the roll.
- Print it at 100% on the rollPaper size 4 × 6 in (or 100 × 150 mm), scaling None, and “Fit to page” off. Print two copies — one to keep, one to measure.
- Measure and scan the printThe label should measure about 88 × 139 mm, centred with roughly 7 mm of white on each side. Scan the barcode with your own phone before printing the batch.
If the page size and the ruler agree and the barcode still will not scan, the fault is downstream of the crop — density, stock or the phone camera. Label still cut off after cropping? works through those five faults in order.
Where to go next
The crop that produces these numbers: crop a Flipkart PDF. Fitting four labels on a sheet instead of a roll: four labels on one A4 sheet. The source measurements in mm and pixels, with what could not be verified: Flipkart shipping label size. Print-dialog detail for both formats: how to print Flipkart labels.
4 × 6 thermal label questions
Is a Flipkart label really 4 × 6 inches?
No. The label block on the sheet is 225 × 355 pt — 79.4 × 125.2 mm. 4 × 6 in (288 × 432 pt, 101.6 × 152.4 mm) is the thermal stock it is printed on, which is larger than the label. The 4 × 6 layout prints the label at 88.1 × 139.0 mm on that stock.
Why does the 4 × 6 output print the label at 111% instead of its measured size?
Because the label is smaller than the page. The layout fits the 225 × 355 pt block into a 250 × 394 pt cell with one scale for both axes, which is 111%, and centres it with 19 pt (6.7 mm) of white on each side. Use Exact crop if you need the label at its measured 79.4 mm width.
203 or 300 DPI for Flipkart thermal labels?
Both print a scannable label. 203 DPI gives a 812 × 1218 px page for 4 × 6; 300 DPI gives 1200 × 1800 px. The barcode does not need the extra resolution, but small address text and dense 2D codes are cleaner at 300. Neither fixes a page that the print dialog scaled.
Why is my label tiny on a 4 × 6 page?
“Keep invoice” is almost always the cause. With it ticked, the 4 × 6 page receives the whole 595 × 715 pt A4 sheet and scales it to 42%, which puts the label at about 33 mm wide. Untick it or use Label + invoice separate, then print the invoice on A4 paper.
What page size should the download be?
288 × 432 pt for Thermal · 4 × 6 inches, 225 × 371 pt for Exact crop, and 595 × 842 pt for an A4 layout. Any other number means a different layout was selected, and the printed label will not match the roll.
Can I print a 4 × 6 label on A4 paper?
You can, but at 100% it prints in one corner of the sheet and a “fit to page” dialog enlarges it instead. For A4, choose the A4 · 4 labels per sheet layout, which places four labels at 88.8 × 140.0 mm with proper margins.