ID card photocopy size: what offices actually expect
85.6 × 54 mm. That is ID-1, the international standard, and a CNIC, a driving licence, a passport card and a bank card are all this size. A copy printed at 100% should measure the same as the card itself.
The ID card tool places both sides at exactly that size on one A4 sheet. ID Card Scan
Why the size is checked at all
Somebody comparing a copy against an original works faster when they are the same size. It also makes tampering easier to spot: a card scaled up or down has to be measured to be checked, and most people simply do not bother, which is exactly the gap a forgery relies on.
The standard itself is ISO/IEC 7810, and the card format is called ID-1: 85.6 by 54 mm with rounded corners. It is why a CNIC, a bank card, a UK driving licence and a passport card all fit the same wallet slot, and it is the number every card copy should be checked against. The same standard defines ID-3 for passports, which is why a passport page is a different job entirely.
What goes wrong on a photocopier
Two things. Auto-fit, which scales the card up to fill the glass and produces a copy nearly twice life size. And the lid left open, which gives a black page around the card and uses a great deal of toner for no benefit.
The fix for the first is a copier set to 100% exactly, not fit-to-page. The fix for the second is a sheet of white paper laid over the card before the lid comes down. Then the third problem appears: the second side. A copier cannot put the back of the card on the same sheet as the front in one pass, so people feed the sheet through twice, and the result is two crooked impressions at slightly different scales. That two-pass dance is the actual reason a layout tool beats the office copier at this one job.
Doing it from a phone instead
A phone photograph can beat a photocopy, because a layout step can place the crop at exactly 85.6 by 54 mm, which a hand on a copier cannot. The requirements are the same ones a copier meets by construction: square-on, evenly lit, in focus. Photograph each side, let the tool crop and straighten it, and have the two sides placed on one A4 page at the real size.
Printing at 100%, which is where good files go wrong
Print dialogs scale by default. Look for 'actual size', 'no scaling' or '100%', and switch off fit-to-page and any shrink-to-margins option; the file places the card at the correct size, and any scaling in the dialog undoes it. The check afterwards takes five seconds: lay the card on its own printed copy. If the copy peeks out or falls short, the print was scaled, and it is the print settings, not the file, that need changing.
When not to force the standard size
Not every card is ID-1. Some student, staff and travel cards are their own shape, and forcing them into an 85.6 × 54 frame stretches the picture into something visibly wrong, which is worse than a copy at no particular scale: it is a copy at a wrong one. Place those at the shape they actually are, as large as fits the sheet.
Both sides, one sheet
Almost every office that asks for a card copy wants both sides, and almost every one prefers them on one page. Two separate sheets is two things to file and one to lose. The convention is front above back, stacked on a portrait A4, which is what a clerk expects to see and what the layout tool produces.
How to get both sides onto one page
Questions people ask next
What is ID-1?
The international standard card size, 85.6 by 54 mm, defined in ISO/IEC 7810. A CNIC, a bank card, most driving licences and a passport card are all cut to it, which is why they all fit the same wallet slot.
My printer will not print at exactly 100%.
Look for 'actual size' or 'no scaling' in the print dialog, and switch off fit-to-page. Almost every printer driver scales by default, and that is the usual reason a correct file prints at the wrong size.
Does a phone photograph copy count?
For most offices, yes, if it is straight, in focus, at the right size, and both sides are on one sheet. A crooked photograph of a card on a desk is what gets refused, not the fact that a phone took it.
Can I put two different cards on one sheet?
Ask first. Some offices want one document per sheet so each can be filed on its own; others are glad of the saved paper. The tool here lays out one card, both sides, per page, because that is the format offices ask for most.
What about a passport?
A passport is ID-3: its data page measures 125 by 88 mm, a small booklet page rather than a card. It does not belong in a card frame at any scale; scan the open data page as an ordinary document instead, flat, with the machine-readable lines at the bottom fully visible.