6.0630 Rs: A4 Paper Redux (6/115)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Tue, 30 Mar 1993 13:51:29 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0630. Tuesday, 30 Mar 1993.


(1) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:52:44 -0800 (23 lines)
From: anthony@ccs.sogang.ac.kr (Anthony)
Subject: Re: 6.0624 Rs: A4 Page (4/47)

(2) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 09:45:06 WST (19 lines)
From: Gregg=Boalch%IS=Staff%CURTIN@ba1.curtin.edu.au
Subject: re: 6.0624 Rs: A4 Page

(3) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:59+0000 (15 lines)
From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE
Subject: Re: A4 Page

(4) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:49:26 +0200 (16 lines)
From: "Gunhild Viden" <viden@trubaduren.hum.gu.se>
Subject: Re. A 4

(5) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:18:38 BST (26 lines)
From: Christopher Currie <ccurrie@clus1.ulcc.ac.uk>
Subject: Rationale of A4

(6) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 14:18+0000 (16 lines)
From: Heberlein@KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE
Subject: A4

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:52:44 -0800
From: anthony@ccs.sogang.ac.kr (Anthony)
Subject: Re: 6.0624 Rs: A4 Page (4/47)

Origin? Sorry, no news. But the Xerox photocopiers in ubiquitous use here all
offer copies in either A4 or B5 size, B5 being about half as large again as A4.
Users of Wordperfect5.1 will know that laserprinters and deskjets etc are very
happy to take A4 size individual sheets; the WP setup tells me that an A4 page
is 8.27" by 11.69" but, perhaps because of its American origin, WP gives you
a standard text size of 58 lines starting one inch down from the top of the page
and with the last line 10.5 inches from the top of the page. Of course, it all
depends on the size of the typeface you are using... but I suppose that you can
use the extra margin at the bottom to fit in another two lines of the standard
size. Hope this is useful, certainly A4 is the standard size fro sheet-fed
printers
(sorry) in this part of the world and, I suppose, most others. Alas, those with
continuous feed printers (most highspeed printers and dot-matrix) have another
size of page, somewhat shorter (WP gives it 54 lines of text with roughly an
inch of margin top and bottom) and a fraction wider even when the perforated
edge is removed. Since very many people will be using paper of this format,
it seems impossible to pre-set texts for any one general paper-size.

Anthony Teague, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------35----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 09:45:06 WST
From: Gregg=Boalch%IS=Staff%CURTIN@ba1.curtin.edu.au
Subject: re: 6.0624 Rs: A4 Page

This discussion appears to highlight an on-going problem. Oversimplified,
there are two sets of standards - English-speaking world (mainly US & UK) and
the rest of the world.

Here in Oz, we use the international standard (A4, B3 etc) for paper measure
and we also adopted the metric standard some time ago. However, it is my
understanding that these standards have met and are meeting strong resistance
in the US and UK.

It is a pity that so much time, energy and resources are wasted due to this
lack of standardisation across cultures....


Gregg Boalch
Boalch@ba1.curtin.edu.au
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 08:59+0000
From: Timothy.Reuter@MGH.BADW-MUENCHEN.DBP.DE
Subject: Re: A4 Page

Norman Hinton asks: why A4? The answer is that you start with the largest
sheet of paper, which is A0. If you divide such a sheet half-way down the
long side you get two sheets of A1, which have (obviously) half the area of
an A0 sheet, and (less obviously) exactly the same proportions, and so on
down through A4 to at least A7. This is done by having height and breadth
in golden section to each other. There are corresponding sizes for
envelopes in B and C forms (though I must confess I've never managed to
work out the differences - I think they cope with different ways of folding
the paper).

Timothy Reuter MGH Munich
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:49:26 +0200
From: "Gunhild Viden" <viden@trubaduren.hum.gu.se>
Subject: Re. A 4

Re Norman Hinton's question:
Yes, there is a system behind the A4. A3 is double A4, A5 is half A4, A6
is half A5 and so on. I have never seen larger than A3, but I guess there
must be an A2 and A1 as well. I don't know what the basis for the figures
are, but I guess it must be some measure that has been used in printing
offices, folio or the like. There is a C system for envelopes: C4 takes
A4 papers (i. e. is somewhat larger), C5 takes A5 papers etc. I suppose
there should be a B system as well, but I have never heard of it.

Gunhild Viden
Univ. of Goteborg, Sweden

(5) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:18:38 BST
From: Christopher Currie <ccurrie@clus1.ulcc.ac.uk>
Subject: Rationale of A4

>: Norman Hinton <hinton@eagle.sangamon.edu> asks:

>The note about the length of A4 paper gives me a chance to ask something I
>have wondered about for years and years: why is it called A4 ? Are there
>other letters and numbers used for other sizes ? And what if anything is
>the rationale for such a system if it does indeed exist ?

It's an EC, not just a German, standard.

Yes, there are other sizes. Each size is half the area of the next
number below; thus A5 is half A4. A0 is the largest,
presumably about 1188x840 mm. The long side is approximately
root-2 times the short side, so that all the sizes
are a similar shape, and two A4 sheets juxtaposed side by side
make an A3 sheet. How they decided on the absolute module I don't know.

In Britain we had just got used to that new metricated system
when computers came in, all made to american standards and therefore
with imperial measurements... So nothing fits.

Christopher Currie
ccurrie@clus1.ulcc.ac.uk
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 14:18+0000
From: Heberlein@KU-EICHSTAETT.DBP.DE
Subject: A4

(See enclosed)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The "mother of all formats" is DINA0 (deutsche Industrienorm,
Format A0) = 1 sqrmtr.
"4" indicates how often that standard format has been folded:
A0 = 841x1189 mm, A1 = 591 X 841 mm etc.
"A" indicates the "absolute" paper-format, "B" the "relative"
format of related envelops etc.

For a (not very entertaining) intro see: M. Klein, Einfuehrung
in die DIN - Normen, 1985.
Fritz Heberlein, Eichstaett