A2 Poster Size in cm

A2 measures 42 × 59.4 cm. We do not sell it. We are starting there because the single most common misunderstanding in poster sizes is that 50×70 is A2. It is not, it is not close, and buying on that assumption is how people end up with a print floating inside a frame it was never made for.

50×70 is not A2

A2 is an A-series size, halved from A1 and doubled from A3, with the ratio 1:1.414. 50×70 is a Nordic centimetre format with the ratio 1:1.4. The ratios are almost identical — the sizes are not.

	A2	50×70	Difference
Width	42 cm	50 cm	+8 cm
Height	59.4 cm	70 cm	+10.6 cm
Area	0.25 m²	0.35 m²	about 40% more

What the gap actually looks like

Lay an A2 sheet inside a 50×70 frame and do the arithmetic. Across the width: 50 − 42 = 8 cm of bare backing board, 4 cm down each side. Down the height: 70 − 59.4 = 10.6 cm. Centre the print and you get 5.3 cm above and below; push it up against the top edge, as most people instinctively do, and the whole 10.6 cm — call it 11 cm — collects at the bottom.

Eleven centimetres is more than a hand's width of empty white board under the image. From across a room it does not read as a generous border. It reads as a print that has slipped.

How you place the A2 sheet	Left/right	Top	Bottom
Centred in the frame	4 cm each	5.3 cm	5.3 cm
Aligned to the top edge	4 cm each	0 cm	10.6 cm
Optically centred (slightly high)	4 cm each	4.2 cm	6.4 cm

The honest fix

There is one way to make an A2 print look right in a 50×70 frame, and that is a cut mount with a 42 × 59.4 cm window. The mount turns an accidental gap into an intentional margin, and it holds the sheet flat so it cannot drift. We do not sell mounts — not in this size, not in any size — so this means a visit to a framer. What a mount is and how the window relates to the print is set out in our guide to mounts.

The alternative is to stop trying. If the A2 print matters to you, have an A2 frame made. If it is a poster you are replacing anyway, buy the art at 50×70 instead and the problem never arises.

Which of our sizes is nearest

Neither of the two candidates is a match. 30×42 shares the 42 cm figure but only as its width, and it is half the area of an A2. 50×70 is the closest in feel and the one people reach for, at forty per cent larger. The full set of five sizes, with the exact millimetres for each, is in the poster size guide.

50×70 is also our most-bought format, and there is a practical reason beyond taste: it is the largest size we make in the coloured frames — white, dark brown, blue, green, red, yellow and pink alongside oak and black. Above it the choice is oak or black only. The finishes are all shown together in the frame collection.

If you are choosing between sizes rather than trying to rescue a sheet you already own, the prints people buy most in 50×70 are in the bestsellers, and the format does its steadiest work in pairs, which is usually above a bed.