Talk:Envelope

request for help
All too often enclosures are improperly sized, resulting in slippage from view of the address in the window envelope. I can't even find a term that describes the problem, let alone find any suggestions as to how one might correctly mitigate the situation. One can find warnings galore against the practice of stapling the enclosure to prevent slippage, but no direct suggestion, other than using a properly sized enclosure, as to how to deal effectively with the problem. Today the situation created by the enclosure-improperly-sized-for-window is more than a mere aggravation. Many of us fear the day our attempt to prevent address slippage gets us in trouble with Homeland Security and identified as saboteurs. The method I have used to keep incorrectly sized enclosures in address window alignment is the post-it method. One affixes post-its to the enclosure (on the unaddressed side) as extensions to the enclosure so that, when placed in the envelope, the addressed enclosure fits snugly enough to remain positioned for correct display of the address. The worry arises that, somehow in the automated opening of the post-it mitigated envelope, machinery will be confounded by the small sticky paper, constituting some slowdown that would qualify under the Patriot Act as terrorism. The IRS 1040-ES (OCR) forms are much shorter than they should be to remain positioned in the envelope for address readablility. What term is there to describe this potentially crippling hazzard, and what is the proper method of mitigation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfsehr (talk • contribs) 13:35, February 3, 2007

why not chrono order?
Any particular reason why the historical perspectives in 'Overview' are not broadly in date order? 86.151.1.36 19:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

request for verification
"Most of the over 400 billion envelopes of all sizes made worldwide are machine-made. The envelope-machine making industry is dominated internationally by WINKLER+DÜNNEBIER."

Oh, really? Questionable and unsourced statistic, and an even more questionable unsourced statement bordering on advertising. Unless someone can back either or both of these statements up, they should go. TCHJ3K 21:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

tinLETTER
I removed the following from the article: Since 2007 it is also possible to use a tin envelope, called tinLETTER, made out of metal for special mailings and repeated use. It was added on 3-Jan-08 by an IP as that IP's only edit. There is no Wikpedia article on tinLETTER, googling gives a commercial website in German (http://www.tinletter.com/) which doesn't look like a very big company. More importantly saying "it is possible" doesn't address in which countries it is possible to, or if the tinLETTER is treated like a paper envelope in those jurisdictions. At any case, it's probably not a general enough feature to warrant commercial product placement in the lede. -- 128.104.112.19 (talk) 20:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

e == Sorting machines ==

"the sorting machines will not accept the international sizes" This is, in fact, blatantly wrong! ISO format envelopes can definitely be mailed at "machinable" rates in the US, and vice versa, as long as the envelopes are within the respective minimum and maximum size boundaries. DL envelopes work fine in USPS sorting machines, and size 10 envelopes work fine in most European machines. But it's all very complicated and I'm hoping someone else will edit the article for me. : D [[Media:Insert non-formatted text here]]

Bold textlink title The USPS has all sorts of useful technical manuals available at www.usps.com, the Royal Mail has theirs at royalmail.com etc. As an aside, USPS letter sorting machines apparently aren't compatible with C5 sized envelopes, as they're just over the size limit. That seems like a silly design decision to me, given the format's prevalence in other countries... (If I'm not mistaken, C5 envelopes are sorted as "flats". I have no idea what that means, other than a $.20 increase in price.) 194.197.217.160 (talk) 05:57,

Australian / NZ sizes
There are some additional "standard" sizes that seem to exist in Australia:

TECHNICAL INFO ABOUT ENVELOPES (archive)

shows them.

DLX = 120 x 235mm

DLE = 114 x 225mm

DLE seems to be common in NZ, as well as in Australia.

DLE is 4 mm shorter than the C5/C6 concept, and generally less of a tight fit with A4. The extra 4 mm even make it quite usable with US-letter, though presumably not to the point of being machinable. On the the other hand, in window envelope situations, there is less room for side-to-side movement than is the case with #10 envelopes and US-letter. #10 envelopes are surprisingly long, even for the width of US-letter.

DLX is nice when a return envelope needs to fit inside, or for additional pages.

I'm surprised that these formats haven't caught on elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.222.25.34 (talk) 03:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Envelope shapes
What are differences between open end, open side and pocket envelopes? Newone (talk) 08:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

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Please don't reinsert hoax names
The "names" for odd sizes floating around the internet are a hoax inserted into the article 27 January 2011. They are not attested before then, and some of them are self-evidently ridiculous ("Business Nude"; "Tairy Greene" is a character from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!) If they really picked up among envelope manufacturers, then they might become the real names for these sizes even if they started as a hoax, but that hasn't happened. Please do not reinsert them. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Present and future state of envelopes
Was this drivel copy+pasted from a high school report? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.195.197.119 (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

ISO standard
ISO 269:1985 Correspondence envelopes -- Designation and sizes says the standard is "Withdrawn", with no indication of a new standard replacing it. Anyone know more about this? Is there currently a standard for envelope sizes at all? --Jmk (talk) 05:20, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I have not found any reason for its withdrawal yet either, but national standards like DIN 476 Part 2 remain in force (while DIN 476-1 for A and B series has been withdrawn in favor of DIN EN ISO 216). — Christoph Päper 18:41, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ I have found a source (this) that says it was not replaced after the withdrawal, I've added it to the article. Alexcalamaro (talk) 04:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Err, that (noidue.de) doesn't look like a good reference. The front page is for an Italian restaurant in Potsdam, which does at least appear to be a real place, however I can't find any direct link to that page except for this wikipedia article and its copies. The text is very poor English, which you might say is just because the owner is German and it's badly translated, but the (de) link doesn't go to a German version of the article, but to another copy of the same English text. Internally the text is self-contradictory and jumps constantly between unrelated subjects. Following the previous/next article links show more of the same from a mish-mash of subjects, the main constant seems to be they all include the word "legal" at some point, regardless of context. Googling random phrases from the article shows a small number of hits in random other pages around the net where they also appear to be part of a semi-coherent mess - the overriding impression is of a very poor SEO hacking attempt. So though we can say for sure that 216:1985 was definitely withdrawn, and there doesn't appear to be any replacement I can find, there also doesn't appear to be any reliable third party source confirming that there is in fact no replacement. 86.26.33.25 (talk) 01:34, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Two sections with the same name!
"Types of envelopes" is the name of two different sections in the page. I think one of the two should be changed to eliminate reference issues. It also could deceive people that the second one of the two might not be existing as an information on Wikipedia. It was about to deceive me... — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThoAppelsin (talk • contribs) 17:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

✅ –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:25, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

envelope linings
I came seeking the history of decorative / security linings in envelopes and was surprised to find nothing here. There's surprisingly little online about them other than a side mention about Hallmark claiming credit for inventing gift wrap by selling fancy decorated envelope linings at Christmas in 1917 when they ran out of tissue paper to sell at their store.

I'm scanning decorative envelope linings collected by a member of my great-great-grandparents' household around 1928-1930. Some of them are truly lovely patterns.

I did find this Reddit post showing a variety of security envelope linings. Those and wedding invitations are the only place this practice seems to survive to the 21st century. https://www.reddit.com/r/stationery/comments/s90ebo/30_years_of_security_envelope_lining_patterns/

There is also this curious little art book from 1997, An Envelope Interior Art History by Erica Van Horn & Harry Gilonis, which has envelope lining papers made in the style of various artists. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2055118

MetaGrrrl (talk) 20:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Aha! I found some more great leads here on the site of Dan Schreck, an artist working with security envelopes: https://abstractcollage.com/collection-security-envelope-patterns/
 * Note in particular the reference citations. I'm back to my scanning project, but perhaps an envelope lover can carry this forward. MetaGrrrl (talk) 21:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

pronunciation
I came here to see if there was info re pronunciation. Where I live in Canada it is common to say 'om-ve-lope' (as opposed to 'en-ve-lope') and I'm wondering if any other places have that pronunciation, if it's related to French, or to a British pronunciation, etc.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.246.146.105 (talk) 02:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)