PDF output of overleaf/pdflatex seems to shrink at printing stage

Question

This problem seems to specific to printing the output of OverLeaf. At the printing stage the PDF file seems to shrink. The issue is not observed on, say, TeXStudio.

I tex the document on overleaf, using pdflatex as the engine, and I print the output pdf file. While on screen the file looks ok, during the printing the page view of the output as well as the actual printed text seem to shrink by about 25%, with extra wide margins appearing on right and bottom.

Here are some variations I tried

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}


%Use either
\usepackage{geometry}
\geometry{lmargin=0.5in,bmargin=0.5in,tmargin=0.5in,rmargin=0.5in}

%or
%\usepackage[letterpaper,left=.2in,right=0.2cm,top=0.5cm,bottom=0.5cm]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

The display looks OK but when I display the page to be printed it has extra margin on right and bottom. As if the output shrank.

This is how the printer setting looks like

Answer 1

Well, I have a current MiKTeX installation for standard A4paper.

If I compile your given code (added option showframe to visualize the typing area and margins) I get the following two results:

MWE 1:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}

%Use either
%\usepackage[showframe]{geometry} % <===================================
%\geometry{lmargin=0.5in,bmargin=0.5in,tmargin=0.5in,rmargin=0.5in}

%or
\usepackage[%
  showframe, % <========================================================
  letterpaper,left=.2in,right=0.2cm,top=0.5cm,bottom=0.5cm
]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document} 

and the result viewed with SumatraPDF:

MWE 2:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}

%Use either
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry} % <===================================
\geometry{lmargin=0.5in,bmargin=0.5in,tmargin=0.5in,rmargin=0.5in}

%or
%\usepackage[%
  %showframe, % <========================================================
  %letterpaper,left=.2in,right=0.2cm,top=0.5cm,bottom=0.5cm
%]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

and the resulting pdf with meta infos:

and if I explizit want to get a4paper:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article} % <====================================
%\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{lipsum}

%Use either
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry} % <===================================
\geometry{lmargin=0.5in,bmargin=0.5in,tmargin=0.5in,rmargin=0.5in}

%or
%\usepackage[%
  %showframe, % <========================================================
  %letterpaper,left=.2in,right=0.2cm,top=0.5cm,bottom=0.5cm
%]{geometry}

\begin{document}
\lipsum
\end{document}

and the result in pdf viewer:

Now it depends on your used printer: is it a letterpaper or a4paper printer? Can you show its configuration in your question please?

BTW: If I print the a4 variant on my a4 printer everything is as it should be ...

Okay, just a wild guess:

In my printer I can change the size for the to be printed document for example to 78 % like here (sorry menu is in German):

As you can see marked with the both red arrows on the left the printing size is definded to be 78 % and the result you see on the right marked with the arrows with the flash: The right margin gots too wide ...