Large Print Maker: Turn Any Text into a Printable PDF

How do you make a large print PDF from your own text?

The maker has four steps. Paste or type your text into the box. Choose a type size, a paper size and a background. Press the download button. Open the PDF and print it, or save it to share.

You can shape the page with three small marks. Start a line with # to make a heading, start a line with - to make a bullet, and put two stars on each side of a word to make it bold. Bold is the way to stress a word, because italics are hard to read with low vision and the maker never uses them. Everything else stays plain, in one column, with wide margins.

People use it for the things a printer never enlarges well: a medication schedule written out by a caregiver, a family phone list, an order of service, the rules of a card game, a letter from a grandchild, a menu for the week. Copy the text from an email or a document, paste it in, and the layout is done for you.

If you want to know why the defaults are what they are, what is large print explains the standards from APH, the American Council of the Blind and RNIB in plain language, and shows how to print anything large at home without this tool.

Does my text get uploaded anywhere?

No. The PDF is built in your own browser. When you press download, the page makes no network request, and the typefaces are already inside the page. We do not keep, read or see what you paste. That matters when the text is a medication list, an address book or a private letter.

The one thing to know is that the tool needs JavaScript switched on. The pages you are reading work without it, but the PDF maker does not.

You may copy what you print. Every sheet carries a short line in its footer saying it may be copied freely for personal, family, church, library and activity-room use, so an activity coordinator can run off thirty copies without asking anyone.

Which type size should I choose?

Start with 18 point. APH says a document is not really large print unless it is 18 point or larger, and it names 18 point for body text, 20 for subheadings and 22 for headings. If 18 point is still a strain, use 24 point. Use 28 point for a sheet that will be read across a table, pinned to a wall, or handed to someone with more advanced sight loss.

Bigger type means fewer words per page, so a long text will run to more pages. That is normal. It is better to turn a page than to squint.

Choose Letter paper in the United States and A4 elsewhere. Choose 11 x 17 inch paper when you want a sheet for a notice board or a shared table. Choose the cream background if white paper glares for the reader. APH lists ivory, eggshell and light beige as good paper colors for people who find white glaring, always with black text.

Which ready-made large print sheets can I print?

Some things are easier to start from a template. Each of these pages has its own controls and prints in the same standard.

A large print Yahtzee score sheet for one to six players, and large print bingo cards with a caller list, cover game afternoons. The large print grocery list and the large print check register help with everyday errands and paperwork, and the large print lined paper has bold, wide lines for handwriting.

For the church year, there are large print Christmas carols and large print hymns, one song to a sheet. For planning ahead, the large print calendar for 2027 gives every month its own page.

The typefaces are Atkinson Hyperlegible, made by the Braille Institute for readers with low vision and free to use, and Liberation Sans, which measures the same as Arial. This site is not affiliated with APH or any of the organizations we cite. We use their published guidance and link to it.