MatMargin

A little room for your art

Find the right frame of mind.

A picture mat planner for photos, prints and the pieces worth putting on the wall.

Free · No account · Calculated on your device

Plan your mat

Start with

Your artwork

Measure the full piece that goes behind the mat, including any paper border.

Your frame

Use the inside size that holds the board, not the outside of the moulding.

Fine-tune the borders

Decimals or fractions, such as 8.5, 1/4 or 8 1/2. All fields use the selected unit.

Front view · Proportional

Your mat, at a glance

Mat color

Check your measurements to see the preview.

Measurement card

MatMargin
Outer board / inside frame
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Window to cut
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Left & right
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Top
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Bottom
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Dimensions are rounded for display. Use the same unit when measuring and ordering.

Borders run from the outer board edge to the front window edge. This front view is not a bevel-cutter setting or a full-size cutting template. Confirm measurements on the actual parts before cutting.

Borders run from the outer board edge to the front window edge. This front view is not a bevel-cutter setting or a full-size cutting template. Confirm measurements on the actual parts before cutting.

A quick guide

From tape measure to mat board

01

Measure the pieces

Measure the artwork and the board space inside your frame. A frame’s outside dimensions include the moulding and do not tell you the board size.

02

Choose what stays visible

Overlap makes the window smaller than the artwork. With 3 mm on every edge, a 200 × 250 mm piece has a 194 × 244 mm window.

03

Take the numbers to your workbench

Print the card or save the diagram. Check the actual board, frame lip and cutter instructions; the drawing is a proportional plan, not a physical template.

The math, in plain sight

Window = artwork − 2 × overlap. Side border = (board width − window width) ÷ 2. Top border = (board height − window height − extra bottom) ÷ 2. Bottom border = top + extra bottom.

Example: 200 × 250 mm artwork in a 300 × 400 mm board, 3 mm overlap and 10 mm extra bottom gives 53 mm sides, 73 mm top and 83 mm bottom.

More on measuring mats

Manufacturer reference: Logan’s mat-border calculator.

Privacy

MatMargin runs its calculations in your browser. It has no account, cookies, analytics, uploads or saved browser storage. Inputs stay in this tab and reset when you reload. Copy, diagram downloads and printing happen only when you ask. Your static hosting provider receives the connection data needed to serve the page, such as your IP address; it does not receive the dimensions you type. The hosting provider is Cloudflare. Contact Jona Bihl at the project support address below for privacy questions.

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