What size should a sublimation design be for shirts? Paper sizes, design sizes and the file format

A sublimation design on the front of an adult shirt is usually 10–12 in (25.4–30.5 cm) wide, and the sheet of sublimation paper decides how large it can be: letter paper holds a design up to 8 in (20.3 cm) wide, 11 × 17 in paper up to 10.5 in (26.7 cm), and a full front of 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) needs 13 × 19 in paper. The file is a PNG with a transparent background at 300 DPI at the printed size, and it is mirrored when it is printed, because the paper is pressed face down onto the shirt.

Sublimation prints the design onto paper with sublimation ink, then a heat press turns the ink into a gas that dyes the polyester fibres. So the print can never be larger than the paper your printer takes, and the smaller desktop sublimation printers, such as Sawgrass’s SG500, take nothing wider than 8.5 inches. This guide sets out what each paper size holds, the shirts sublimation works on, and the file it needs.

How big a design each sublimation paper holds

Paper	Size	Whole sheet in pixels	Largest t-shirt print it holds	Printers that take it
Letter	8.5 × 11 in (21.6 × 27.9 cm)	2550 × 3300 px	Centre chest, 8 × 8 in (20.3 × 20.3 cm)	Sawgrass SG500 (US model)
A4	8.27 × 11.69 in (21 × 29.7 cm)	2481 × 3507 px	Upper back, 10 × 5 in (25.4 × 12.7 cm)	Sawgrass SG500 (EU model)
Legal	8.5 × 14 in (21.6 × 35.6 cm)	2550 × 4200 px	Centre chest, 8 × 8 in (20.3 × 20.3 cm)	Sawgrass SG500 (US model, its tray expanded)
Tabloid (11 × 17 in)	11 × 17 in (27.9 × 43.2 cm)	3300 × 5100 px	Women’s full front, 10 × 12 in (25.4 × 30.5 cm)	Sawgrass SG1000
A3	11.69 × 16.54 in (29.7 × 42 cm)	3507 × 4962 px	Women’s full front, 10 × 12 in (25.4 × 30.5 cm)	Sawgrass SG1000 (EU model)
13 × 19 in	13 × 19 in (33 × 48.3 cm)	3900 × 5700 px	Full front, 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm)	Sawgrass SG1000, through its bypass tray

“Largest t-shirt print it holds” is the largest of the common t-shirt placements in what size a t-shirt design should be that fits on the sheet, with 0.25 in (0.6 cm) left on every side for the printer’s margin and for placing the paper. A smaller design always fits; “Whole sheet in pixels” is the whole sheet at 300 DPI, the largest canvas a design for that paper needs.

What this means for a shirt:

• Letter paper holds a centre chest design of 8 × 8 in (20.3 × 20.3 cm), and left chest logos, pocket prints and short sleeve prints. A4 is a little narrower, up to 7.77 in (19.7 cm) across. Neither holds a full front on an adult shirt.
• 11 × 17 in or A3 paper holds a youth full front of 9 × 12 in (22.9 × 30.5 cm) and a women’s full front of 10 × 12 in (25.4 × 30.5 cm), and an adult front up to 10.5 in (26.7 cm) wide.
• 13 × 19 in paper holds an adult full front of 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm) and a full back of 12 × 14 in (30.5 × 35.6 cm).

Sawgrass, which makes desktop sublimation printers, gives its SG500 a width of 8.5 inches, with legal paper in the US model’s expanded tray and A4 in the EU model, and its SG1000 11 × 17 in paper, A3 in the EU model, and paper up to 13 inches wide through its bypass tray. Other printers have their own limits: read the maker’s specification before you promise a size.

Design sizes by shirt size

On the shirt, sublimation follows the same placements as any print. An adult full front is 10–12 in (25.4–30.5 cm) wide, a youth full front 7–10 in (17.8–25.4 cm) wide, and a left chest logo 3–4 in (7.6–10.2 cm) wide. Measure the smallest size you sell, because one design is usually pressed on every size: a print that fits a small shirt sits well on a large one, but not the other way round.

The press matters too: its plate has to cover the whole print, so a 15 × 15 in press will not take a full front of 12 × 16 in (30.5 × 40.6 cm). What you need to start a t-shirt printing business weighs press sizes against prints.

Which shirts sublimation prints on

Sublimation dyes polyester, and its inks have no white. Sawgrass describes its SubliJet UHD sublimation ink as working best on white 100% polyester and 65/35 polyester-cotton:

• Polyester, white or light. The more polyester, the brighter the print; on a blend, the cotton takes no dye, so the colours look faded.
• No dark shirts. The ink is see-through, and there is no white ink to put under it, so on a dark shirt the print almost disappears.
• White in the design is not printed. Wherever a design is white, the shirt shows through: on a white shirt that reads as white, on a light grey shirt as grey.

For cotton or dark shirts, sublimation needs a go-between, such as a sublimation vinyl you print, cut and press like heat transfer vinyl, which Sawgrass names for its Siser EasySubli ink. Otherwise a different method fits better: DTF vs sublimation vs HTV compares them.

The file format: PNG, 300 DPI, RGB

• PNG with a transparent background. Transparent pixels take no ink. A JPEG has no transparency: its white background takes no ink either, but off-white specks and the JPEG’s own blur around the design can print a faint box, so use PNG for a design that does not cover the whole print area.
• 300 DPI at the printed size. A 10 in wide design needs 3000 pixels across. The DPI number saved in the file changes nothing; what counts is the pixels against the printed size, and below about 150 DPI fine lines and text print soft.
• RGB colour. Design in RGB and print through the printer maker’s software with its settings for your paper, so its colour management converts the design to the sublimation inks.
• No white you want printed. Make anything that should be the shirt’s colour transparent, and anything that must be white needs a white shirt.

Mirroring

The paper is pressed face down, so the print on the paper is a mirror image of the shirt. Mirror the design when you print, in your printing software or your design program, never in the file you keep: text on the paper reads backwards and on the shirt reads right. Mirror it once only: a design mirrored in the file and again when printing comes out backwards on the shirt.

How to set up a sublimation design for a shirt

1. Check the shirt. Use white or light shirts with a high polyester content: 100% polyester gives the brightest colours, and dark shirts and cotton take no sublimation dye.
2. Find the largest print your paper holds. Take the paper’s width less an edge of 0.25 in (0.6 cm) on each side: 8 in (20.3 cm) across on letter paper, 10.5 in (26.7 cm) on 11 × 17 in paper.
3. Size the design for the smallest shirt. Measure the print area on the smallest shirt in the order and make the design fit it, within what the paper holds.
4. Make the file at its printed size. Set the canvas to the printed size at 300 DPI in RGB, and export a PNG with a transparent background.
5. Mirror it when you print. Turn on mirroring in your printing software, or flip the design in your design program, once only.
6. Press a test. Press one shirt at the temperature, time and pressure the paper and blank makers give, and check the colours and the placement before printing the order.

Taking sublimation orders where customers design the shirt

When customers design their own shirt online, most of these rules can be set once instead of checked on every order. PrintBlob is a product designer for WooCommerce; with PrintBlob Pro, each printed side of an order arrives as a transparent PNG at 300 DPI at exactly its print area’s size, ready to mirror and print. That suits sublimation in three ways:

• The print area is your paper’s. With PrintBlob Pro you photograph your own polyester shirt, draw its print area and enter its print size in centimetres: make it no larger than your paper holds, and no design can be larger than you can print. PrintBlob’s bundled t-shirt prints 28 × 36 cm on the front, which needs 13 × 19 in paper.
• Only the colours you can print. Customers choose from the colours you create as the product’s variations, so a sublimation shirt is offered in white and light colours only, recoloured from one white photo.
• A warning before an image is too small. While a customer places a photo, the designer shows its resolution at its printed size and warns below 150 DPI.

What PrintBlob does not do: it does not mirror the file, add bleed or lay several designs out on one sheet, and it does not know that white will not print, so a customer can still choose the designer’s white ink. Say in the product description that white parts show the shirt’s colour. The free plugin keeps every order’s design, but the print files, your own products and the print size you set come with PrintBlob Pro, $69 a year or $99 once (limited-time offer until 31 December 2026) (Free and Pro compared). Mugs, sublimated in the same way, have their own sizes in mug design size.

Questions about sublimation design sizes

Sources

Read on 21 October 2026:

• Sawgrass, How to choose the right Sawgrass printer for your business (29 September 2023): the SG500’s 8.5 in width, legal paper in the US model’s expanded tray and A4 in the EU model; the SG1000’s 11 × 17 in paper, A3 in the EU model, and paper up to 13 in wide through its bypass tray.
• Sawgrass Care, Ink sets: which one to choose: SubliJet UHD works best with white 100% polyester, 65/35 polycotton or hard substrates; Siser EasySubli ink for sublimation vinyl on cotton or dark substrates.
• The t-shirt placements and their sizes: what size a t-shirt design should be, with its own sources.