
Paper sizes - willvarfar
http://www.royvanrijn.com/blog/2015/02/paper-sizes/
======
glitch
I really wish we'd switch to the ISO-216 sizes. A4 to A3 is so much more
enjoyable and painless than Letter to Tabloid. This kind of thing came up
often while making posters for campus because it was cheaper to NOT print out
all of the posters on Tabloid. Rather, using a mix of Tabloid (for the
important poster posting spots) and Letter (for unimportant spots and as
flyers for handout). Always ended up having to spend more time to make two
layouts because of it. And A4 to A5 for booklets without having to re-layout
the document is a huge plus too! And for books, I like to use B4* to fold in
half. (B5 pages are nicer than A5 pages for the kind of books I tend to read.)
The proportions are all the same, so it just works! One layout, many paper
size (of the same proportion) possibilities!

Edit: Additional note with regard to the book publication (depending on
printing and binding method used)... Sometimes/often this is printed on
something like A3 size for bleeding and with crop marks. The A3 paper is then
folded and cut, so that the pages become B5 size. (Signatures essentially
composed of folded B4 as a consequence of the cropping. There is of course
difference between the outermost sheet and the innermost sheet in each paper
signature, which is why it's all cropped at the end.)

~~~
mxfh
Is there are reason that B5 sized paper sheets are only available as imports
from Japan in Europe?

The strict interpretation of the B series as a packaging format for the A
series only seems somewhat archaic.

~~~
Symbiote
B5 paper sheets don't seem to be easily available in the UK.

B5 books are the most common size though, most of my school exercise books
were B5 or B4 — that allowed me to glue in a sheet of A-sized paper, possibly
folded in half.

Why do you prefer B5 to A4 for paper?

~~~
glitch
To answer your question about my preference... For non-fiction books, A4 pages
seem too big for me, A5 pages seem little too small to me, and B5 pages seem
just right. Again, this is just for non-fiction books. Fiction books I prefer
more A5-sized. Just my own personal, subjective preference. That's all.

------
currysausage
Not every European is/was happy with the A series of paper formats. Jan
Tschichold (1902—1974), arguably one of the most influential typographers of
all time, strived against it, arguing it was unpleasant for office use
(comments by jgrahamc and johnchristopher go into this direction) and
downright unsuitable for book use.

I can't seem to find an English-language version of his A series rant (found
in Erfreuliche Drucksachen, p. 111), but for anyone interested in traditional
book layout, this (English-language) essay is a goldmine:
[http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/classes/artistsbooks/...](http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/reese/classes/artistsbooks/jantschichold.pdf)
(pp. 39 f. touch on the A series).

------
anonu
I've lived in the US and also in a country that used the A-series extensively.
While I've always appreciated the beauty and math of the A-series, I find the
aspect-ratio of the US Letter paper to be much more appealing. A4 tends to be
too long and too narrow.

~~~
skore
From the article:

> US Letter: 216 mm x 279 mm

> A4: 210 mm × 297 mm

so it's 18mm longer while being 6mm narrower. At that small a difference, I
would assume that a preference of one over the other is similar to that of
metric vs. imperial - the one you were raised on just _seems right_.

Which one did you grow up with?

~~~
eterm
But it is _both_ 18mm and 6mm narrower, so it goes from 1.414 to 1.29 in terms
of ratio.

In other words A4 seems 10% narrower in terms of _shape_ , which isn't
insignificant.

Having said that, I'd rather keep A4 given the useful properties described in
the article.

------
monochromatic
> But what do you end up with folding the US Letter? Let’s see:

> 216 mm x 279 mm ratio: 1.291

> 139 mm x 216 mm ratio: 1.554 <\- What?

> 108 mm x 139 mm ratio: 1.287 <\- Ah..

> 69 mm x 108 mm ratio: 1.565 <\- HUH!?

> 54 mm x 69 mm ratio: 1.278

> 34 mm x 54 mm ratio: 1.588

> 27 mm x 34 mm ratio: 1.259 <\- Oh god...

These ratios, in fact, just go back and forth between two values (because when
you cut a piece of paper into fourths, it has the same aspect ratio as the
original). The other differences are just rounding errors.

He notes rounding errors earlier in the post, so I'm not sure why they get
called out in this example with "HUH!?" and the other comments.

~~~
glitch
Agreed. The article writer really failed in that section. It's just rounding
error. Based on his written reactions there, I honestly don't think he
realized it was oscillating at the time he wrote that part. It seems like he
just didn't want to bother to correct himself after the fact or is just
intentionally being stupid.

------
xorcist
While we're at it, couldn't we also wish for the US to adopt the ISO standard
date format, YYYY-MM-DD That would be great. Thank you.

------
johansch
Anecdote: the office management/finance/HR people in the european office where
I work _really, really_ hate US Letter formats, because they don't really fit
in "normal" binders.

They're the ones who really suffer from this, because they're the only people
who deal with paper format documents these days, I guess.

~~~
smackfu
US Letter is shorter than A4, so it seems like they should fit fine? I guess
it's 6mm wider but that is not much.

~~~
vmarsy
For some important documents that you want to preserve and/or don't want to
pierce there is a solution: store it in a plastic sleeve like this one:

[http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1777660007/100-X-A4-CLEAR...](http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1777660007/100-X-A4-CLEAR-
font-b-PLASTIC-b-font-PUNCH-PUNCHED-POCKETS-font-b-FOLDERS-b.jpg)

If you happen to receive US letter sized paper, it won't fit because of the
width, that is too much for these, and they get crumpled.

------
karimatiyeh
A comical yet accurate take on why A4 is the best paper size :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb9EsAD2jGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb9EsAD2jGQ).
You'll enjoy this. The tone is great as well.

~~~
ericglyman
Today I learned something new. And I was entertained. Tip of the hat.

------
jws
His table at the end purporting to show a plethora of strange aspect ratios is
just his rounding errors.

When repeatedly folding paper, the aspect ratio alternates between two
numbers. (Consider after two foldings, each side is half the original. Same
aspect ratio.) Unless of course you have soulless A series paper, then they
are all the same.

------
todd8
I enjoy working with paper. My favorite notebooks are ISO A4 size because they
give me a bit more vertical room and still fit well in my backpacks.

The issues that come up with regard to US Letter size paper seem to be:

1) It's not metric -- yes that's true, but A4 is 210mm x 297mm. These numbers
seem completely arbitrary and don't take advantage of the metric system. I
wish the US was on the metric system, but it's not so 8.5 in by 11 inches at
least has the advantage that it is measured in simple numbers with respect to
standard measures in the US.

2) It's easier to store and work with A4 because it is one half of an A3 sheet
-- however, US Letter is one half of the US Tabloid/Ledger size. The ANSI
(American National Standards Institute) paper sizes in inches are A (8.5 x
11), B (11 x 17), C (17 x 22), D (22 x 34), etc. and share this advantage with
the ISO standard.

3) The aspect ratio is is approximately sqrt(2)/2 for all paper in the A
series, the B series, and the C series. But why is having but one shape of
paper an advantage? Sometimes it's useful to have choices depending on the
content to be printed on the paper. Furthermore, the ANSI paper sizes simply
have two aspect ratios alternating as one increases paper size.

It is argued that printing posters with corresponding flyers is easier with
ISO paper sizes. But this is true with ANSI paper sizes: one would have to
jump up two sizes from letter (ANSI A, 8.5 x 11 inches) to ANSI C (17 x 22
inches). So, for the case where one would like to print at ANSI B, the aspect
ratio of the page is a bit different. Here we have, what appears to me, to be
the first real advantage of ISO over ANSI paper, where we need to print a
flyer at A4 and A5 (but not A6). However, this hasn't been a problem for me
personally. I'm usually working with pages that have additional constraints.
For example space for bindings or differences in margins between recto and
verso sides of two sided printing. Whenever there are bindings involved the
aspect ratio advantage goes out the window.

4) Every country uses ISO sizes, why not the US (and Canada and Mexico) --
well, this is oversimplifying things a bit. Take a look at the Wikipedia page
for paper sizes. There are Japanese variants, German extensions, and Swedish
extensions listed that deviate from the ISO standards. There are also
Architectural sizes listed that are designed to have simple ratios for their
aspect ratios.

The idea that we would somehow be better off with fewer choices (just one)
really for aspect ratio really strikes me as wrong. I like all the variety
available in paper.

~~~
mpweiher
You write that the A4 numbers "seem completely arbitrary".

While they might _seem_ to be arbitrary, they are obviously not the least bit
arbitrary.

The base size A0 has an area of exactly 1 square meter. Each subsequent size
is constructed by taking half of the previous, so for A4 it's 1/16th of a
square meter, or 0.0625 sqare meters, 625 square centimeters, which is 21.0 cm
x 27.9 cm (approximately).

In order to have both the halving property and the self-similarity the aspect
ratio has to be sqrt(2), and therefore you can't have nice little round
numbers for the sides.

If I have to choose between self-similarity and nice round numbers, I'll take
self-similarity, thank you.

~~~
azth
> The base size A0 has an area of exactly 1 square meter.

Which is still arbitrary :)

~~~
willvarfar
No, its the basis of paper weights too, which are measured in grams/m^2

~~~
ovulator
Another thing that the US fails miserably at. 80# cover, 110# index, 24# bond
… it’s all meaningless.

~~~
function_seven
Those numbers aren't meaningless. They're the weight of a ream (500 sheets) of
that paper at 17x22.

------
Aoyagi
Next step: metric measurement units everywhere. I've been waiting for that for
decades. If "dozens" would die as well, even better.

~~~
sergiosgc
Counting in base 12 is much better than base 10. 12 has prime factors {2,2,3},
so you get 2,3,4 and 6 as integer divisors, not just 2 and 5. That's why
dozens stuck as a counting unit on so many things, namely time (all the way
back from Egyptians).

You can even count using your fingers. Just count using your thumb pointing at
each of the finger joints and the finger tip (you have two joints and one tip
per finger and four fingers excluding the thumb). Actually, that's how
Egyptians counted and that's why you get 12 hours in the realm of day and 12
hours in the realm of night.

The only drawback is multiplication tables. If I tend to forget the
multiplication table for 7 and 8, memorizing tables for 11 and 12 would be
nightmarish :-)

P.S. This is obviously tongue-in-cheek. While it _may_ be marginally better,
switching costs mean the optimal course of action is to stay at the local
maximum and avoid switching.

~~~
transfire
I've done some extensive analysis of number systems (almost enough to write a
book on the subject) and come to the conclusion that the best are senary (6)
and quaternary (4). Six has all the benefits of twelve, save the extra divisor
of 2 (and thus 4), but that is easily remedied by use of the square (36) when
required. Quaternary may seem an odd choice, but the square is 16, so one
naturally learns hexadecimal without doing hardly any extra work --you just
pair up the digits.

If your curious, duodecimal and octal come in after these and decimal falls to
fifth place, which is fitting since its main advantage is divisibility by 5.
:-)

~~~
MichaelGG
Interesting. I always thought base 16 was the only suitable number system.
Base 2 is the only justifiable one, since base 1 is not much fun. Squaring
base 2 twice to get a fair amount of information in a single column seems to
just make sense. What are the downsides of 16?

~~~
ars
Balanced ternary is superior to them all.

[http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/sjmiller/public_html/105...](http://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/sjmiller/public_html/105Sp10/addcomments/Hayes_ThirdBase.htm)

------
colechristensen
This is one of those things that seems technically correct (the best kind of
correct) but practically ... meh. The benefit exists but is barely enough to
get anyone entrenched to actually change. Much like the common usage of the US
Customary units, nothing is going to actually change.

~~~
justincormack
Odd how every single country in the world has adopted it, except for the US
and Canada. They all changed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#The_international_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#The_international_standard:_ISO_216)

~~~
rhino369
But they didn't change from a widely used system to another widely used
system. They changed from no standardized system to ISO.

North America already as system in place. Switching from one to the other
confers very little, if any, benefit.

~~~
Symbiote
Ah, so America is special again? No, many countries had standard sizes before
ISO/DIN.

Britain changed from "Imperial" sizes: [http://www.papersizes.org/old-
imperial-sizes.htm](http://www.papersizes.org/old-imperial-sizes.htm)

France had these before 1967: [http://www.paper-sizes.com/uncommon-paper-
sizes/old-european...](http://www.paper-sizes.com/uncommon-paper-sizes/old-
european-paper-sizes/old-french-paper-sizes)

~~~
rhino369
America is special in that it is large enough to use their own standard.

It is the reason why the EU can create their own standards that nobody else
follows. Like Rohs, the reason your electronics fail at a higher rate than
previous electronics. Smaller economies suffer when they can't use/make their
neighbors goods.

The North America a huge economy. We can efficiently have our own standard.

Uk and France aren't big enough to dictate their own paper size.

------
allendoerfer
The USA and the EU are currently negotiating a free trade agreement [0]. I
would say call your representative to get it on the list. Not to get too
political here, but that would be much more beneficial than much of the other
stuff that is already on it, where usually the lower standard succeeds
_magically_.

[0]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investm...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership)

------
StefanKarpinski
When someone claims uncritically that the ratio of any two integers is √2, I
get a little edgy. I'm also having a hard time following this simplification:

    
    
        A / √A = A × A / A = A
    

Huh? This only holds if √A = A = 1. I haven't checked the rest, but this
doesn't give me much confidence.

Of course, knowing those Europeans, these sizes do probably make tons of sense
on paper (see what I did there?), even if this isn't the best explanation of
it.

~~~
delinka
The article's not claiming that the ratio of any two integers is √2, he's
claiming that when the ratio of the lengths of the sides (the aspect ratio) is
√2 that it's easy to keep that ratio with smaller pages by cutting the longer
dimension in half.

As for your equation above, A/√A != A x A / A, but I'm not seeing where in the
article you got this either.

~~~
baddox
> The size is 210 mm × 297 mm and has a ratio of √2 (math!).

That looks like a claim that the ratio of two integers is sqrt(2), but it's
fairly obvious that he really means that it's very close.

~~~
delinka
I don't think anyone would attempt to assert that any measurement (or ratio of
measurements) made with our current technology could ever be _precisely_ √2 or
even π (that's pi)

------
jellicle
Everyone who supports the A* sizes of paper (start with a square meter because
it's nice and clean, then just declare that all other paper uses that
humankind might ever need should be specific fractions of that square meter
and no other sizes are ever needed) should also support Swatch time.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time)

Alternately, if Swatch time seems dumb to you, then you might also accept that
paper should be sized to fit a usage, not just a "clean" measurement scheme.

Does this hold true for other things as well? Should all cell phone screens be
sized to be a specific fraction of a square meter, just because it's
"cleaner"? Or should they be sized to fit, you know, people's hands and
pockets?

And for that matter, the math isn't even right! Because SQRT(2) is not
rational, you'll get noticeably different sizes if you actually started with
4A0 and sliced it in halves until you got to A10 versus directly cutting an
A10 piece. That should drive you math-obsessives _crazy_.

~~~
baddox
I agree that fanaticism over an arbitrary paper standard seems silly, but I
don't buy your analogy. The reason Swatch time probably feels dumb is that the
notion of changing the time format used by essentially the whole globe is
itself dumb. The transaction costs are almost certainly higher than any
benefits.

------
nakedrobot2
Why did Americans simplify and streamline the English Language, but they
didn't bother with all of the systems of measurement?

~~~
ajuc
English is far from being streamlined.

In fact it's the only language I know that requires you to learn how to
pronounce EACH word.

Most languages only require learning how each letter sounds, and maybe a few
dozen di/trigraphs, the rest is regular. Not so in English.

~~~
logfromblammo
No, you don't.

You only need to learn separate spelling and pronunciation rules for each of
the languages English has evolved or stolen from.

The _tough_ spellings usually come from Germanic roots via Old English and
Middle English, whereas the French-Norman spellings are less _difficult_.

Greek-Latin spellings are markedly less confusing when you learn the
transliterations of the Greek alphabet. Of course Philadephia is pronounced
with fricative 'f' sounds instead of plosive 'p' sounds, because the Greek
letter for that sound is 'phi'. Because of that, I dislike it when people
pronounce the feathered dinosaur archaeopterix as [ar-key-OP-tur-iks] rather
than [ar-KAY-o-(p)TEAR-iks]. It isn't incorrect either way, because in
English, correct is whatever other people will understand. (Suck it, French.)

This is why I get sick of people complaining about "monolingual" English-
speakers. The language has been glued together from Dutch-Germanic, North-
Germanic, French-Norman, Greek, Latin, and centuries of absorbing and
assimilating immigrant populations from all over the world.

You really only need to learn rules derived from four dissimilar languages to
spell and pronounce almost everything in English without having a word-
specific association. The remaining ten percent of words are correct when
spelled and pronounced as in the native language or as anglicized
renormalizations, even using the rules specific to unrelated languages. That
is why the plural of octopus can be either octopodes or octopuses. Octopi is
colloquially correct, but it is then acceptable to deliver a short lecture on
Latinized Greek words. Similarly, the acceptable plurals of cactus are
cactuses, cacti, or (los) cactus (pronounced as in Spanish). As Spanish has an
increasingly large influence on American English, I have found it useful to
know that it only has five vowel sounds, and knowing how to pronounce burrito
and enchilada correctly gives you all five.

Despite what your elementary school teachers may have said to you, you are
only incorrect in English if other people cannot understand what you are
trying to communicate. Nevertheless, failure to be incorrect does not imply
correctness, which is why grammar nazis exist.

~~~
nawitus
>You really only need to learn rules derived from four dissimilar languages to
spell and pronounce almost everything in English without having a word-
specific association.

Don't you also need to learn the language from which every word is derived
from?

~~~
logfromblammo
No. The rules come from different languages, but once the word is considered
an English word, only the orthography matters. If you make a new word by
combining skip and hop into "skiphop", someone may mistakenly pronounce it
[ski-fope] rather than [skip-hop], despite the fact that neither "ski" nor
"phop" are identifiable as Greek roots, because phi makes an 'f' sound, and
that makes the subsequent 'o' vowel pronounced as the 'o' in 'phobia'.

Knowing the etymology helps, but is not necessary. When linguistic researchers
create nonce words for their experiments--words with no etymology at all, like
"gluff" or "splim"\--they find that people still generally pronounce them in
the same ways.

They also find that people impute meanings to the nonce based on structures
found in the word. For instance, when given the nonce words "plorkish" and
"erildophate", and told that they are synonyms, subjects may claim that the
latter is more sophisticated or scientifically precise. Or perhaps they are
told to match the word to the person who spoke it, and a significant fraction
of subjects match the words to the pictures the same way.

You can do the test yourself. Print out photos of Bill Nye and Kanye West.
Write out "plorkish" and "erildophate" on index cards. Tell people the words
are synonyms, and ask them to match the word to the photo of the person who
said it. If they don't swing at least 60% in favor of West=plorkish and
Nye=erildophate, and pronounce the words the same way, I will eat a tiny
portion of my least favorite hat.

I claim bonus points if they also use them in a sentence or identify the part
of speech as adjectives. Perhaps ask your subjects to also guess the sentence
their chosen person spoke when using the word.

People do actually get paid to test this. This might be a good Science Fair
project, actually.

~~~
nawitus
>Knowing the etymology helps, but is not necessary.

Well, often it's necessary to either memorize a pronunciation or know the
etymology, because often people pronounce English incorrectly.

------
PythonicAlpha
I know that there is a continuing fight between US measurements (inch, ...)
and European measurements (Metric system) -- but I really was shocked, when a
printer wanted to have "US letter" pages. The advantage of the A-System is so
big over the US letter system, that I don't understand that there are still
countries that don't want to adopt it. Just ask your photo copier
manufacturer!

It also can't be reasoned, that so many cars or traffic signs have to be
changed ...

------
VLM
HN effect killed the article, can't read it, have to estimate based on
existing comments. Assuming they actually read it, of course.

Paperless office, checking in here. Our printer is only used for people
screwing around doing non-work related projects, printing school essays for
themselves or their kids, real estate MLS records, car insurance forms, stuff
like that.

------
transfire
I think I'd be okay with A4 if it were a bit smaller. Pegging A0 to a sq.
meter is the problem. That's just arbitrary.

------
phragg
Let's work on a demand for a metric standard instead of this..

------
robaato
My personal rant is that I want a global setting on every printer to override
differences in requested page size.

For example, being in the UK, I print to A4, and that is the only size of
paper I have available for my printer. If I print stuff from browsers, or
documents from US people which are set to page size Letter, I DO NOT WANT TO
HAVE TO GO TO THE PRINTER AND PRESS A BUTTON TO PRINT ON THE ONLY PAPER
AVAILABLE (A4). Just print everything on A4 please - ignoring page size
requests (or at least let me choose the option to do this override).

This is such a pain, and occurs very frequently. Am I alone? I rather assume
the inverse applies for US people.

It could be a setting on the printer queue, but then you are at the risk of
every operating system or indeed application such as browser getting it
wrong... Printer manufacturers please just add a setting to your options -
pretty please...

~~~
Tepix
Haven't had that happen for ages...

------
agrona
I went into a Fedex/Kinko's in the US, to try to print something on A3.

They looked at me as if I had just asked them to sell me a unicorn. They then
offered to custom cut a piece of paper for what I'd approximate as several
tens of thousands of percent markup.

------
brudgers
And what about US legal? Or Architectural Sizes?

Nevermind folios (and quartos and ovtavos).

It's a big diverse world with room for all sorts of paper applications.

[Architectural Sizes]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Architectural_sizes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Architectural_sizes)

[folios]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folio_%28printing%29#Size](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folio_%28printing%29#Size)

[big diverse world]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Other_sizes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Other_sizes)

~~~
glitch
It is a big, diverse world. And various, special use-cases are best addressed
with different aspect ratios. But, to me, the point of ISO 216 adoption in
place of US Letter (and other common sizes) is about having a general-
purpose/common-use aspect ratio with inherent properties that help simplify
things across the board for a lot of people. If it wasn't already used so much
elsewhere, I'd be a "harder sell" (even to myself). But, it is used
elsewhere... a lot... and has beneficial properties too. Trying to clean up
the mess and simplify the chaos. Remove the unnecessary extra baggage
associated with other systems.

Aside: If I was king of Sun III (previously known as Earth), my replacement
for "US Legal" sized paper would be 210mm × 340mm. This maintains the width of
A4, but gives it a length similar to that of US Legal. Moreover, it achieves
this using the Golden Ratio. Calling it φA4 for the time being.

    
    
        US Legal..:  8.5”  × 14” (Before mm conversion.)
        US Legal..:  216mm × 356mm —> approx. 1.647:1 ratio
    
        A4........:  210mm × 297mm —> approx. 1.414:1 ratio
        φA4.......:  210mm × 340mm —> approx. 1.619:1 ratio
    

See [http://i.imgur.com/S0rrRnP.png](http://i.imgur.com/S0rrRnP.png) for an
example.

Aside: Apparently the 210mm × 340mm size is used for some folded paper towels
and some pastry bags already. Also, Mexico's "Government-Legal" is 216 mm ×
340 mm — same height as my proposal but with a 6mm width difference. (Theirs
matches US Letter/Legal width of 216mm instead of the A4 width of 210mm.)

~~~
brudgers
Are you volunteering to transition Sun III's physical files cabinets, storage
boxes, warehouse shelving? To reconfigure their printers, rewrite their report
software etc.?

There's a lot of friction and it all takes place on the ground, unlike
translating Python 2 programs to handle Unicode, there's no cloud service
model that facilitates the transition.

 _The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
choose from. -- Grace "disputed attribution" Hopper_

~~~
glitch
As King of Sun III, yes I am forcefully "volunteering" my subjects to do the
work. Archives can remain as-is. Everything new shall use the new system.
Doing otherwise incurs penalty. If you don't use the new system, you will get
pain treatments and possible death. /humour

------
mrottenkolber
I have to note that A4 (what goes in a standard printer) is just a _shitty_
format for documents. There is no way to get a proper layout done, you
basically need two columns to use a reasonable amount of space with regards to
font size and text body layout, which leads to other problems.

There is a very good reason you don't see any A4 books. A5 works OK for book
layouts but still is too wide actually...

A5 booklet printed:
[http://mr.gy/blogopy/max/3589981109.html](http://mr.gy/blogopy/max/3589981109.html)

~~~
skore
> There is no way to get a proper layout done

This is puzzling - how do you explain the abundance of people who seem to have
no problem with this whatsoever?

Finally: I have seen lots and lots of A4 books, but they're simply not as
common. It probably does help to live in Europe in that regard.

~~~
mrottenkolber
Are you a bookmaker? The are the ones with the problems. ;)

> I have seen lots and lots of A4 books

And they all have suboptimal layouts.

~~~
skore
> And they all have _suboptimal_ layouts.

(my emphasis)

My question would be - would you be willing to ascribe that to taste?

~~~
mrottenkolber
No. Try to layout a document on A4 while maintaining at least basic standard
rules (e.g. lines of 8-12 words, a pretty text body layout, e.g. a "nice
ratio" like 3/4 or 1/2, with standard margins, that is 1 on top, left and
right and 2 on bottom). Since your font size will either be 11 or 12 pt on A4
because otherwise you use less than half of the paper or your font is really
huge, you're not left with many options.

~~~
MrDosu
All of this is voodoo that you learned working with your preferred aspect
ratio and size. None of these rules have any kind of objective basis.

~~~
SeanLuke
I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of
aesthetic tweaking by experts as voodoo simply to defend a page size and
proportion whose primary advantage is not aesthetic but function.

------
melchior
Another fun fact:

An A0 piece of paper has an area of exactly 1 square meter.

~~~
minikites
It says that right in the article.

------
transfire
One could just imagine Letter to be 11" x 7.7781" (preserving the sq. root
ratio) but with a 0.7219" side margin for bindings. Feel better now?

------
state
I have been keeping all of my notes on B5, while living in the US, for the
past ten years for this exact reason. 8.5 x 11 is simply not an attractive
shape.

------
peapicker
I personally want Japanese B5 notepads -- they are the perfect dimensions. I
ran out a long time ago, and they are hard to come by in the US.

~~~
raimondious
They're cheap at Muji.
[http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-
paper...](http://www.muji.us/store/stationery/notebooks/recycled-paper-note-
double-ring-b5-plain-80.html)

------
AnonJ
The post seems to be inspired by a hot question on Math StackExchange
[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1143132/is-there-
a-s...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1143132/is-there-a-size-of-
rectangle-that-retains-its-ratio-when-its-folded-in-half) . Probably the
author should also acknowledge it?

------
yummybear
As a young european the printer message "Please insert letter", or something
similar, always confused the hell out of me when printing certain PDFs.
Letter? What letter?

------
dlu
Yay math. But we're not changing. Were you around for us trying out the metric
system?

If you really want to start, let's begin with QWERTY keyboards

------
mark-r
And let's not even get started on standard(?) photo sizes! Who came up with
that mess?

------
sebgeelen
Is this the place to bring "inches vs cm" on the table ? :p

~~~
snarfy
It's not the place, but not that you've brought it, as an American I say
imperial units can go die in a fire.

------
Tepix
Is A4 sized paper hard to get hold of in the US?

~~~
kw71
I tend to buy two reams A4 for each ten reams Letter, but each time
availability and pricing varies. OfficeMax used to have Boise A4 paper around
$8 a ream, but now they are selling a Hammermill paper for $11. Never in the
stores of course.

------
smackfu
Practically, the number of people who need to ever use a paper size other than
letter/A4 is minimal. So any elegance is pretty much lost.

~~~
Symbiote
Not true, at least outside the US where using other sizes is easy. It all
"just works", so it's used all the time.

Age 5, my school work book is B4 size. I can glue the a A4 sheet (or two A5
sheets) the teacher hands out.

A little later, and the work books are B5 sized. A4 sheets fit in if folded.

I want to make a poster at home. I set the document size to A2, design it,
press print, and four A4 sheets are printed, exactly the right size. I can
change it to any other A-size very easily.

I want to photocopy / print some A4 documents, but save paper. Two (or four)
sheets fix neatly on one page. Or, I can enlarge it to A3 — most photocopiers
in most offices have A3 paper in one of the drawers for this. There's an A3
laser printer in my office, it's useful.

From my desk, I can see things laser-printed by me in A4 and A3; things
produced in A5 and A6; and notebooks in B5. If I need a poster in A1 or A2
size there's a printer upstairs.

------
talideon
I've tried in the past to explain how awesome the sqrt(2) ratio used as the
basis of DIN/ISO page sizes is, but there are some very dumb people on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7821947)

~~~
maxerickson
They are more or less agreeing with you that convenient scaling is a feature.
They just use a bad analogy, and you talk past each other a lot.

(I agree that they miss the point that you aren't promoting metric)

~~~
philh
Yes. talideon wrote two unrelated sentences next to each other, Turing_Machine
thought they were related, and the two of them started talking about different
things. (This is my impression, at least. I can't seem to bring myself to
properly read the whole thread, it's too frustrating.)

talideon, you do not come across well from that exchange. You may or may not
have been talking to a brick wall, but you weren't listening to one. I more-
or-less agree with raldi: instead of fixating loudly on what Turing_Machine
did wrong in that thread, think about how you could do better next time.

~~~
talideon
Look, I repeated told him that the units didn't matter, and that it was the
ratio that mattered. Other than disengaging sooner (which I would've done if
I'd any cop-on myself), what could I have said differently? I'm truly at a
loss. I straight-up wrote this:

> _The units are irrelevant._ That's what you're not getting. What is relevant
> is that the same page width/height ratio is maintained between the different
> page sizes.

When I was younger, I would've had more patience with this kind of thing; but
as I get older, it becomes less and less worth my time and energy.

~~~
maxerickson
You say that "same page width/height ratio is maintained between the different
page sizes" is the important thing, but it's the result of using that
particular ratio that is important, when you take a page of 1/2 the area by
cutting across the long dimension, the aspect ratio is maintained.

If you aren't worried about maintaining the aspect ratio for 1/2 pages, you
can maintain any arbitrary aspect ratio as you scale up and down (but you
don't get the 'easy' scaling to half or double areas).

That's where the imperial fluid analogy comes in, there is convenience derived
from having it be base 2.

~~~
talideon
The fluid measurements analogy doesn't work though because volumes don't
behave the same way as areas with fixed aspect ratios. Moreover, the reason
why √2 is such a useful ratio is _because_ it maintains the same aspect ratio
when the sheet is doubled or halved. That's why his argument was nonsensical.

------
robinanil
Nooo... Dunder mifflin will be out of business!

------
higherpurpose
A lot of US "standards" (only US uses them) should be banned.

~~~
sspiff
There is nothing weird about __national __standards. Everyone does it. Germany
has DIN, for instance. Even tiny Belgium has the NBN.

Usually, these standards are either equivalent to international standards or
are only relevant in the home country of the organization.

------
acd
Please ban letter size, ever been at the printer realsing nothing printed and
facing PC Load letter message? Ever been in a foreign country trying to find
your home countries legal size of paper in a local store?

I think we should switch to metric, a4 paper and right hand driving.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
All of the countries using US Letter already drive on the right hand side...

~~~
ekimekim
I think the sentiment was "standardize on the majority", not "everything the
US does is wrong".

