A3 poster printing

An A3 poster measures 297 × 420 mm, exactly two A4 sheets side by side. It is the indoor poster: big enough to be noticed on a stairwell noticeboard or the glass door of a small shop, compact enough to fit between other notices. Clubs, property managers, practices and neighbourhood shops put it up wherever people pass within arm's reach.

You can open the poster configurator in A3 and order just one copy: with the starting settings (100 g glossy coated paper, front only 4/0, no finishing), the price table begins at 1 copy. Whether you need one poster for your own building or twenty for every block on an estate, the price in CHF appears straight away and the unit price drops at each quantity step. If you choose another paper, the configurator shows the quantities available for it.

Typical indoor A3 notices

An A3 notice is read up close, while walking past or waiting. A few uses where the size proves its worth:

• In a block of flats: the new laundry room rota, notice of building work, an invitation to the courtyard party.
• On the shop door: the annual holiday closure, a new service at the bike repair shop, the dish of the day at the café next door.
• In the clubhouse and changing room: the training schedule, notice of the annual general meeting, thanks to the season's sponsors.
• At the practice, school or town hall: new consultation hours, a parents' evening, sign-ups for the children's holiday programme.

You will find more notice ideas for buildings and clubs on our pages about printing for real estate and printing for clubs and associations.

Matt rather than glossy: paper for indoors

Indoors, a poster almost always hangs under artificial light: strip lights in the stairwell, spotlights in the shop, ceiling lamps in the changing room. On glossy paper these lights leave bright patches and, depending on where the reader stands, part of the text vanishes. For a text-heavy A3 notice, matt coated paper is therefore the first choice; the configurator offers it in 100, 130, 170 and 250 g.

White offset paper (80, 120 or 190 g) is uncoated, so a ballpoint pen writes on it easily. Cream natural, linen, recycled and grass papers give a notice a warm, tactile feel that suits a farm shop or a pottery studio. If you want certified paper, the natural, linen and recycled papers come in an FSC® version, and coated, offset and poster papers in a PEFC version. Glossy coated paper remains an option for a poster built around a photo and kept away from direct light.

An A3 file made for close reading

Set up the file in CMYK at the finished size of 297 × 420 mm; at 300 dpi that is 3508 × 4961 pixels, not counting bleed. People stand at arm's length from an A3 poster, so any blur shows: a logo taken from an email signature or a screenshot will not do, so use the original file.

A notice reads well when the order is clear: headline and date large, details such as the registration deadline or the contact person smaller but not tiny. If you want to cut tear-off strips with a phone number, leave a band free at the bottom. Our print templates for posters show where the bleed runs and what safety margin to keep for text, and the printing glossary explains the terms. Every file is checked before production.

Double-sided printing and protection

Front-only printing (4/0) is usually enough, since the back faces the wall. The exception is a poster fixed to the inside of a glass shop door: printed on both sides (4/4, depending on the paper), it shows your offer to passers-by in the street, while customers leaving the shop read your opening hours or a thank you on the back.

A notice that stays in a stairwell for weeks gets touched, moved and pinned up again. Matt lamination on the front protects the surface without adding new glare. Depending on the paper, the configurator also offers varnish, partial UV varnish or hot foil; a poster that comes down after the event needs no finishing at all.

Need it bigger? Other poster sizes

If your poster has to carry a few metres through a shop window, move up to A2 posters; for a shop entrance, a hall or a stand, look at A1 posters. Our guide to print sizes compares all DIN formats in millimetres and pixels.

Delivery anywhere in Switzerland costs CHF 7.00 per order and is free from CHF 100; prices include 8.1% Swiss VAT.