Sunday, October 21, 2012

European Versus American Paper Sizes


9 comments:

  1. That's very interesting, I never knew that about ratios of European papers. I've also never seen a paper cutter at Harbor Freight, but you remind me I haven't been there in awhile.

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    1. The Harbor Freight is new to our area, and I have to say I'm a fan. Maybe not the highest quality tools, but... It's fun walking the aisles and seeing all the gadgets referred to in my Honda service manual and knowing I can get them if I need to. The flare-head crow-foot socket wrench to change the fuel filter, the 36" breaker bar to get at my timing belt. And hey, they carry 3-in-1 machine oil!

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  2. I had no idea about the European sizes. How delightful.

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    1. Math can lend elegance to the most ordinary items, I find.

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  3. I am always amazed that we do not use systems like this in America. I mean, really...the metric system definitely seems like the logical way to go, as everything is just so easy to figure out. Same thing applies to paper sizes, apparently. Just makes things easier, it seems.

    Thanks for sharing. This is something I had never even considered...

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    1. I'm adding metric based paper sizes to English style hedges, castles, and Welsh accents as a reason to emigrate to the UK if I ever have the opportunity.

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  4. A4 is pretty standard here in Australia. I always found the 'Letter' and 'Legal' paper sizes to be both badly proportioned, and limited. I do like how we use that ratio sizing though. We also have ratio sizing on envelopes and other stationary.

    As we usually use A4 here in AU, naturally all of our binders are the same size. I guess, to wit: our binders are too small to hold American woman. Mitt will be most upset.

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    1. I love it. European women: a little taller and thinner than American women. Purchase your binders accordingly.

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  5. Actually, the A-Paper system is very mighty with all those formats, but we pretty much only use A4. The only time you encounter sheets larger than A3 is at school, when, in 2nd or 3rd grade, you get to know all of them, starting with A0 and going down as far as possible. We, for example, folded paper boats in every size from A0 to A12.
    For my typecasts, I take a couple of A4 sheets and cut them in half - I think that's the most comfortable typecasting size.

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