191–200 of 267 posts
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8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!
I did not even know anything else than A4 existed, I just learned that now
Earlier quoted context omitted.
8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!
Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.
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Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.
Deep within your subconscious memories is a series of you unloading A4 from your printer, thinking about where to best store it, finding 20 reams already there, stacking this one on top, and then promptly forgetting the location.
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In case anyone is unaware, A0 is 1m^2 in size, and each adjacent number is half the size (i.e. A1 = 500 000 mm^2, A2 = 250 000 mm^2, A3 = 125 000 mm^2, A4 = 62 500 mm^2). This has the great advantage of allowing documents to be easily up and down-scaled on a photocopier - i.e. an A3 document can be printed at 50% scale on an A4 sheet. I wonder if anyone ever tried to do something similar with imperial units (AKA Engl…
US paper sizes: ANSI A == 8.5 x 11 inches (letter) ANSI B == 11 x 17 inches ANSI C == 17 x 22 inches ANSI D == 22 x 34 inches ANSI E == 34 x 44 inches There are additional sizes frequently used in the US too: business card, legal, half letter, and specialized sizes for architecture.
17/11 = 34/22 = 1.55
These have the property that they alternate aspect ratios every size, so you have to go up two sizes (4x area) to get back to the original aspect ratio.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!
Why would anyone care if they received the other paper size? The differences are tiny.
Allegedly during Colin Powell’ time at the State Department there was quite an ordeal to change paper sizes for communication between offices: https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2001/06/the-powell-leadersh... “correspondence between headquarters and overseas embassies, known as Diplomatic Notes, for years had to be accompanied by a legal-size (8 1/2-inch by 14-inch) cover sheet. That wasn't really a big deal when the n…
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A/B/C paper series formats are based on metrics system and therefore, morally evil and unfit for the US consumption.
* Imperial units are defined in terms of metric units. * The cost of changing over is astronomical * Domains where the metric system is actually better use the metric system * Domains where it does not don't need it. * You have a supercomputer on your wrist. Dividing by a number other than 10 is not such a challenge anymore. * A4 paper is in no way superior to letter. It's just a choice. Replacing American exceptiona…
as opposed to the cost of not changing over, which is much larger but paid in small increments over time so nobody is bothered enough to do anything about it
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> metric [...] morally evil I've never heard an American complain that Coca Cola is sold by the liter. There's no moral component to Americans not wanting to switch to metric. It's simply a matter of the switch and retooling being more hassle than continuing to use American customary units. Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans.
The metric vs imperial discussion reminds me of Android vs iPhone discussions: Android users tend to care a lot more that their text message bubbles are green than the iPhone users do.
Interesting that the memo claims that sans serif fonts are preferred to serif fonts for screen reader users and people with disabilities. I thought the exact opposite was true. Is there any definitive research on which type of font is more accessible?
“Disabilities” is an extremely wide spectrum, and it’s pointless to try to group people on that scale.
To be fair, isn't basically any font better than Times? Wasn't the whole point of Times to be legible when printed at super high speed with super cheap ink on super crappy newsprint? If you want maximum legibility, would the solution not be a variant of Century Schoolbook which was explicitly designed to be legible?