"H. Peter Anvin" wrote on 2002-05-01 21:08 UTC: > In the former case, I would like to propose a "worldwide compromise" > page size -- 210 x 279 mm. Such a page can be printed, cleanly, on > either on A4 (210 x 297 mm) or US-letter (216 x 279 mm) by expanding > either the horizontal (US-letter) or vertical (A4) margin.
I do like using the so-called "PA4" format (210x280 mm, see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html for its history) for producing presentation slide PDF files. Primarily, because it has exactly 4:3 aspect ratio (and therefore will fill all pixels of a data projector / monitor), and also fits without scaling onto both A4 and P4. (P4 being the Canadian version of US Letter with 215x280 mm; the difference is within the tolerance interval anyway.) As for the actual physical paper format (as opposed to PDF document layout), I'd like to warmly encourage people in North America to start using A4 paper. It's widely supported by software and printing equipment, well established, and allows far more pleasant magnification/ reduction on photocopiers thanks to its sqrt(2) aspect ratio than the ugly ad-hoc other "system" that was the result of the turf fight between two early 20th century U.S. paper industry committees. Some U.S. stationary retailers who sell A4 are listed on http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html Additions welcome! Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/> -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
