Talk:Paper size/Archive 2

Arch size chart
I threw together a size chart for Arch sizes to complement the ISO and ANSI charts. feel free to use it as you please.

Schmidt455 (talk) 01:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Trim size
Although the whole idea of metric (what is called "international" here) paper size was initially some sort of mathematician's wet dream to have a size that can be just cut in half to produce another metric size, as anyone in the publishing business knows this is a fantasy. A3 copier paper can be cut to make A4. But beyond that 90 percent of paper is used in ways that requires a bleed margin or a trim margin. So paper is actually manufactured in non metric sizes in order to end up with metric sizes after printing or binding.

The upshot of all of this is that the implicit moral superiority of metric ("international") paper sizes is BS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.148.77.146 (talk) 01:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's calm down: the only "metric" part of A-sizes is that A0 is 1m2 in area. But bleed & trim exists for whatever size system one may select, so this does not add or subtract from the merits of whatever system. Still it remains that I can fold an A-size sheet in half and retain the aspect ratio. The intermediate manufacturing sizes that are never seen by the end users are irrelevant to those users. RobertCailliau (talk) 15:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Merger with ISO 216 page
Given the existence of the ISO 216 article, I think the corresponding information in this one should be deleted with a reference to that one. It might be worthwhile to have historical information about pre-metric paper sizes. 18.24.0.120 00:32, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * I see a slight argument for keeping the information, since it's nice to have a side-by-side comparison of US vs ISO paper sizes. Kaszeta 15:50, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * This page is today widely referenced as a description of the ISO paper sizes. It would be rather odd if an article about paper size did not cover prominently the by far most widely used ones. Markus Kuhn 13:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * I would rather suggest to remove the ISO 216 article and merge it with this one. Markus Kuhn 13:24, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above suggestion. Theshibboleth 03:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's clear that one of two things should happen; either ISO 216 should be merged into this article, or the ISO-216 information in this article should be deleted from here and merged into the other. My personal preference would be the latter, since I think this article is too long as it is.  Maybe do that, plus rename this article to be Non-ISO paper sizes, and make Paper size a dab page pointing to both of them?   RoySmith (talk) 17:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with RoySmith that one of those things should happen, however my preference is for ISO 216 to be merged into this article. Thryduulf 18:22, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with Thryduulf. This article is very complete. 158.42.188.203 11:41, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Same for me. I think we should merge IS0 216 into this article - CyrilB 12:06, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the neatest solution would be to have the sizes and "basics" in both articles (using transclusion if that's the only way), while moving the historical discussion to the ISO-216 article. Shinobu 10:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Rant
Seems that The USA et. al. just like to be different. I mean no one else in the world uses Imperial measurement any more - GET WITH THE TIMES PEOPLE!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.35.43 (talk) 09:03, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment to the annon poster: Some people don't seem to understand the enormous size of the US economy. It may be just one country, but its one big country in terms of economic power. :)  Anyway, to the point, ISO should be merged with this article.  When coming across this article today, I was actually quite impressed with its completeness and organization. —  f c s u p e r ( How's That?, That's How! ) (Exclusionistic Immediatist ) — 15:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Oversized for printing?
I've recently been looking the exact size for the oversized paper sizes used in printing processes where you want print to the edge. But I can't seem to find those sizes anywhere. Is this because there's no exact standard, or is just not here because the author doesn't have the knowledge of this?


 * The article currently lacks a description of the ISO 217 RA and SRA untrimmed format series used in the printing industry . Markus Kuhn 16:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

A0 Oversize is (as I understand it) a classical size in the printing industry. I believe A0 Oversize is 905x1245 mm. ISO 217 SRA specs [] provide dimensions close to that, but not exaclty the same. Are they the same? I feel that A0 Oversize should be added to the page, somehow.--Svenjick (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Ridiculous precision
Can we get rid of the four-decimal-place numbers and the properly-annotated repeating decimals? It's ridiculous. This isn't physics. You can't possibly cut paper to this precision. It's just visual noise and an ignorance of the concept of 'significant figures.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.38.195.47 (talk) 00:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

A4R
Curious about references to paper size 'A4R'. Searches result in lots of printer manuals. What is it, please? Nick Wilkinson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.101.83.139 (talk) 14:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It usually means A4 Rotated by 90 degrees... That is, same dimensions as A4, but wider than high Ratfox (talk) 18:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

American Sizes
I always find it curious that while the rest of the world has one size, America has two. But if they combined the lengths of the Arch series with the widths of the ANSI series there could be one series with the same ratios as ISO paper. Like so: Dyaimz (talk) 07:02, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * While your comment is perhaps interesting it is of no use to the article - see WP:OR. You are unfortunately wrong about the ratios - ISO paper's ratio is not 1.4, it is √2. Roger (talk) 15:47, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * You’re right about Original Research of course, but the original poster has also a point since $1 5/12$ = 1.41_6 and $1 7/17$ = 1.4117… approximate √2 = 1.4142… quite well. — Christoph Päper 09:12, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

American Quarto
From article: 'Outside of North America, Letter size is also known as "American Quarto".[2]'

I live in Britain and have never heard of American Quarto, in my experience it's always been referred to as letter paper or possibly 'that weird American paper'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.22.72 (talk) 09:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you'll find you're talking American not English. You know the "Letter" name from American sources like laser printers and operating systems from Redmond US. The only actual English appellation I've ever come across is a couple of (usually obscene) variations of 'that weird American paper' 2.126.196.74 (talk) 10:26, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There’s a source given, but I de-emphasized the wording a bit. — Christoph Päper 09:12, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

A0 paper size
I think that it is important to let people know where the 841 x 1149 mm are coming from. And thus it corresponds to rectangle area of 1m² with a ratio of √2. Thus the vertical of an A0 paper is $$\sqrt{\sqrt{2}}$$. But TeX doesn't display well and thefore I am using the notation 2¼. And the formulation is:


 * The base A0 paper size is a sheet of paper measuring 1 m² in area, which corresponds to 2-¼ by 2¼ metres rounded to undefined x.

Would you prefer the TeX notation ? --Nbrouard (talk) 17:27, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I vote for TeX - the current notation is obscure. The average reader of this article is unlikely to be into advanced mathematics. Alternatively you could also simply say it in prose: "the square root of the square root of two". Roger (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I know this isn't Simple Wikipedia, but if you did a random survey, how many would know what 2-¼ means, much less what it is. And there's no reason to (ab)use expr, it's not like the math is going to change. Q T C 00:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your remarks. The key thing is to let people know where this 1149 comes from and this is simply the square root of the square root of 2 metres rounded in millimetres. Apparently it wasn't so obvious to everybody and thus an explanation seems necessary. I agree that saying it in prose is enough but I would like wikipedia doing the computation itself (like converting millimetres into inches):
 * 1149 = $$\sqrt{\sqrt{2}}$$ =$$\sqrt[4]{2}$$ = 2¼= $$\exp{(\frac{1}{4}\log 2)}$$
 * The right expression can be computed by wikipedia which currently knows only exponential and logarithm:


 * I still believe that most people have a mobile with a calculator and, in three clicks, "2 √ √" can get the result 1.189207115 . Here is the proposed formulation:


 * The base A0 size of paper is defined to have an area of one m². With the given aspect ratio of square root of two, this corresponds to a piece of paper which height is the square root of the square root of two and its width being the inverse of this value. Rounded to millimetres the A0 paper size is undefined x.--Nbrouard (talk) 09:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to complete the formulation add in "...which height is 1 metre multiplied by the square root of the square root of two and its width being the inverse of this value." Roger (talk) 09:36, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, much better formulation. Thanks.--Nbrouard (talk) 10:54, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

ISO paper sizes
Guys I work at a print shop in the states and atempted to use the Rounded inch measurements to cut American 11x17 down to A4. I'm not sure how we can do it but we need to change the inchs part to exact measurments or add a disclamer that the rounded numbers won't work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ozmarlu (talk • contribs) 02:21, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Surely the word "rounded" should be enough of a clue. In any case WP is not a how-to guide Roger (talk) 14:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It would, however, make more sense to round to the nearest 0.01" instead of 0.1". Dicklyon (talk) 20:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The official ISO standard specifies rounding to the nearest whole millimetre which is about half a hairbreadth less than 0.04 inch. Roger (talk) 17:11, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, so to get close to the in inches, you need 0.01". Dicklyon (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I see the specified tolerances are OK with errors up to 0.05" that you get by rounding to 0.1"; so I don't know why Ozmarlu was complaining. Of course, you'd be more likely to stay within the 0.06" tolerance limit if you weren't starting with up to 0.05" rounding error, so putting another decimal place is still a good idea.  Dicklyon (talk) 23:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Unclear passage
I think this is wrong, particularly in its use of the word "which", but I'm nervous about changing it, because I don't really understand it. With the given aspect ratio of square root of two, this corresponds to a piece of paper which its longer side is one metre multiplied by the square root of the square root (that is, the fourth root) of two and the shorter side being the inverse of this value.

And if this passed vetting by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, then they are not doing a very good job, are they? Myles325a (talk) 09:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A user has changed the "which" to "with". & I think the "which its" probably means "whose" in pure grammar aspect. --LunarShaddowღIvy (talk) 03:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I replaced the passage by something clearer (I hope). Geke (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

An ambiguous question mark in the table "Other sizes"
In the table "Other sizes", there is a strange question mark after title "Legal, Monarch". It is quite ambiguous when I am trying to find what the "Monarch" size paper is. Since I'm not familiar with this topic and the fact, please someone help me to check whether the question mark is a sign of uncertain, or just a typo bug. Thanks a lot! --LunarShaddowღIvy (talk) 03:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't find any reference for this, and the only Monarch size I've ever encountered was for the size used in executive stationery. I'll remove it from the table. (As an aside, in my experience in the Canadian printing industry, we hardly ever referred to the paper sizes by name – we used the dimensions.) Modal Jig (talk) 14:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Entertainment industry?
Anyone understands this sentence: "This system has also been adapted by the entertainment industry for the purposes of entertainment drafting." ? I guess it should read "adopted", but some more details would be very welcome! What in the world is "entertainment drafting"? Geke (talk) 18:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I took it out as nonsense, anyone putting it back needs to explain it properly. Roger (talk) 16:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Type scaling
The main part of this article states "The main disadvantage of the system is type does not scale the same way; " I do not understand what is meant by that. Surely if I reduce a given page of text by a factor equal in both directions, then everything is just smaller, and the statement " the proportion between the type's x-height, page margins, and leading are distorted" sounds to me very strange: the proportions remain exactly as they are. Or, is the meaning that if one uses smaller font sizes then the leading is different? That is true, but that is a different effect, which holds for any system of paper sizes. I think it would be good to distinguish explicitly between two important issues:


 * 1) the "photographic" type of reduction of an existing page onto a smaller size, for which the preservation of the aspect ratio is important; this is what happens e.g. when reducing a large page to a small one using a photocopier.
 * 2) the production of printed text using a small font or a large font, and choosing a paper size that suits the font's size.  In this case, the type on the page must be reset to take into account that small sizes of a certain font are not simply scaled-down versions of larger sizes. But that is true for any set of sizes, and if smaller sizes have a different aspect ratio the "problem" is likely to be greater.

For point 1 the ISO standard provides a solution, for point 2 no system provides a solution and thus I would propose that the paragraph is either removed or clarified.

RobertCailliau (talk) 16:08, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with your analysis. The two criticisms of A-series paper are either (1) wrong ("the proportion between the type's x-height, page margins, and leading are distorted", or (2) a criticism of linear scaling of fonts to different sizes, which is a valid criticism in general, but has nothing to do with the proportions of particular types of paper -- photographic reduction or enlargement of text on letter-sized paper, for example will have the same issues with legibility as it would with A-series paper.  Since no one has defended inclusion of this nonsense for almost a year, I'm removing it.Turjan (talk) 16:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Confusing switch from good to bad
In the three paragraphs surrounding the reference to Lichtenberg, there is a confusing switch. In the paragraph just before (starting with "The significant advantage of this system is its scaling:") it is explained how using the square root of two makes things so much easier. Then the next paragraph talks about how Lichtenberg's system was formalised. The very next paragraph (still apparently talking about the same square root of two system) starts off with "The main disadvantage of the system is that type does not scale the same way".

I suppose my confusion is where did the change of topic take place?? Either the system discussed scales well or it does not, right?

Can someone with more expertise in this history please look into it?

Thanks, WesT (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems to have been corrected in the meantime. — Christoph Päper 09:12, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Images
File:A size illustration2 with letter and legal.svg should be improved with an overlay for ledger/tabloid size atop the A3 box, to compare the size of the relatively common North American Ledger/Tabloid with the European A3. -- 65.94.76.3 (talk) 13:32, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The file contains such overlays since early 2014. — Christoph Päper 09:17, 2 September 2014 (UTC)