TL;DR;
The best document setup for Canon Selphy QX20 card-size printable area is:
Width: 162 mm (16.2 cm)
Height: 213 mm (21.3 cm)
Margins: 2 mm (0.2 cm) on all sides
The size is three times larger than the actual printed size, which should help prevent pixelation during printing.
The actual printable area is 54 × 71 mm.
The Story
I prefer to work on my Panda Pu characters in a paper sketchbook, with all the devices put aside. It works well until I need to get references for my sketches. In this case, I have to use a phone or a laptop, but I find it quite inconvenient to use references displayed on any device while I draw. First, the screen goes off quite often and I need to constantly tap it to prevent it from turning off. Second, I can’t trace the reference with my pencil because I would scratch the display otherwise.
So I prefer to print my moodboards and glue them to the pages of my sketchbook. I use a Canon Selphy QX20 with card-sized paper. It prints on glossy paper with a sticker backing, which fits my needs perfectly.
I prefer to use Apple Pages to make the moodboards for printing. But I struggled to find the right document size that would produce a perfect fit when printed. At first, I could only find the size of the printed card itself, which also includes the unavoidable blank margin at the bottom, or on the right side if printing in landscape mode.
Another problem was that images exported at the exact size with the default settings were blurry when printed. It could be solved by setting the correct export settings, but I preferred to just create a document three times larger than the final result.
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find these settings published anywhere, so I decided to share them with you.
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