Label stock
63.5 × 33.9 mm labels
Two and a half inches wide, and a height chosen so that eight rows fit an A4 page. The most-printed label sheet in most buildings.
An imperial width on a metric page
63.5 mm is two and a half inches exactly. 33.9 mm is not anything in particular — it is what eight rows leave inside A4 once the printer's margins are taken out. That mixture is why this size looks strange written down and works perfectly in practice: the width came from the stock tradition, the height from the paper.
Three columns of 63.5 mm with a 2.5 mm gap between them comes to 195.5 mm across, leaving 7.25 mm each side. That gap between columns is doing real work: it gives a guillotine or a pair of scissors somewhere to go, and it absorbs the small horizontal drift that every sheet feed introduces.
What this size is
- In inches
- 2.5 × 1.33 in. Only the width came from inches. The height is what a sheet of paper divides into, which is why the two numbers look unrelated.
- Vessels it wraps
- Anything from a 50 mL conical tube upwards, so also a GL45 reagent bottle. The tightest of those has a usable band of about 88 × 55 mm, which this label fits inside.
- Die-cut sheets
- A4 · 24-up · 63.5 × 33.9 mm — 24 per A4 sheet.
- Roll stock that carries it
- 76.2 mm, 101.6 mm. The narrowest that takes it is 76.2 mm, and a roll narrower than the label is reported as an error rather than trimmed.
What fits on a 63.5 × 33.9 mm label
| Type size | Lines | Plex Sans | Barlow Condensed | Atkinson Hyperlegible | Plex Mono | Space Mono | Courier Prime |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.5 pt | 17 | 80 | 111 | 81 | 64 | 63 | 64 |
| 5 pt | 15 | 72 | 100 | 73 | 58 | 56 | 58 |
| 6 pt | 12 | 60 | 83 | 60 | 48 | 47 | 48 |
| 7 pt | 10 | 51 | 71 | 52 | 41 | 40 | 41 |
| 8 pt | 9 | 45 | 62 | 45 | 36 | 35 | 36 |
| 10 pt | 7 | 36 | 50 | 36 | 29 | 28 | 29 |
The size where pictograms become practical
A GHS pictogram has to be large enough to recognise at a glance, and recognition depends on the diamond being read as a shape rather than as a smudge. Below about 8 mm across that stops happening reliably under normal bench lighting. A 33.9 mm tall label can carry a 12 to 15 mm pictogram and still leave two thirds of its height for text.
That changes what the label is for. On smaller stock, hazard information has to be a line of text competing with the identifier for space. Here it can be a symbol that is processed before anything is read, which is the entire design intent behind pictograms in the first place.
If more than two pictograms apply, the arithmetic changes again — three across a 63.5 mm label leaves each about 18 mm of width before gaps, which is comfortable, but four starts crowding the identifier. That is usually the signal to move up to 76.2 × 50.8 mm rather than to shrink the symbols.
Common questions
- Which Avery product is 63.5 × 33.9 mm?
- Several, across different ranges and regions, which is why this site organises stock by geometry rather than by product code. Match the cell size, the pitch and the distance to the first cell against the sheet in your hand; if those three agree, the layout will print correctly whatever the box says.
- Can I print this size on a thermal printer?
- Yes, on 76.2 mm or wider roll stock. The narrowest common roll that carries a 63.5 mm label is 76.2 mm, since the label has to sit inside the printable width with the liner clear at both edges.
Open it in the editor
The editor loads at 63.5 × 33.9 mm with a worked example in place. It runs entirely in your browser: nothing you type is uploaded, and there is no account to make.
Last reviewed 2026-09-13.