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Paper sizes

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Re: Paper sizes

#101

Post by slowmovintarget »

todd8 wrote: post #85

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…

U.S. Letter size predates the European standard. The U.S. Letter size apparently originates with vellum sizes and was originally intended for handwriting not typography[1].

However, there are some good ways to use 8.5 x 11 [2] that might look odd on narrower and taller paper.

[1] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/09/why...

[2] http://retinart.net/graphic-design/secret-law-of-page-harmon...

Re: Paper sizes

#102

Post by davidw »

anonu wrote: post #2

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.

I've lived in both, and... of all the differences, and problems with various formats and standards and things, this one is so far down the list that I've never even really thought about it.

Re: Paper sizes

#103

Post by johansch »

smackfu wrote: post #93
johansch wrote: post #23

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.

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.

Never underestimate the level of OCD in good finance/office management people. :)

Re: Paper sizes

#104

Post by jdmichal »

Aoyagi wrote: post #44

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

I haven't heard many arguments against dozens. In fact, there are some groups that specifically argue for duodecimal systems. I'd be interested to hear your position in more detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Advocacy_and_.22doze...

Re: Paper sizes

#105

Post by maxerickson »

talideon wrote: post #84
philh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 liste…

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…

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.

Re: Paper sizes

#106

Post by School-Cotton »

Symbiote wrote: post #73
sswezey wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to learn to pronounce each word with Chinese too.

To a point, but there are clues: 马 is mǎ, meaning horse. It's a picture of a horse, with 3000 years of adaptation. 女 means woman / female. It's a picture of a woman. Put them together and 妈 means "the female thing that sounds like mǎ", which is mā (a different tone), meaning mother. (I'm very much a beginner, but my teacher claims ~70% of characters follow this pattern.)

Yup, so in Mandarin you have a vague hint as to how to pronounce each word, based on writing. Same goes for English.

Re: Paper sizes

#107

Post by transfire »

sergiosgc wrote: post #83
Aoyagi wrote: post #44

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

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 an…

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. :-)

Re: Paper sizes

#108

Post by mpweiher »

todd8 wrote: post #85

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…

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.

Re: Paper sizes

#109

Post by rs232 »

murbard2 wrote: post #94
todd8 wrote: post #85

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…

1) A0 is 1m^2

Which also lets you caclulate the weight of a document (say for shipping):

Standard printer paper is 80g/m2: A1 = 40g, A2 = 20g, A3=10g and A4=5g.

Or, alternatively, crumple up A4 sheets for quick 5g weights.

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