Jim, I still had to experience the near demise of our international paper sizes and almost seeing them replaced by American sizes by the computer people.
I thought that I was clear enough when I stated expressly that I was NOT criticizing your choice of paper sizes. I *only* meant to condemn the invasion of inch paper sizes in metric countries and I would condemn it again and again. In my opinion it was the same kind of evil as the once liquide thing by some US cosmetics companies. American paper sizes are just as bad for metric countries as any other ifp unit and as any other ifp-based standard are. Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Elwell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 4:00 PM Subject: [USMA:19781] Re: Answer from MT editors > At 10:19 AM 4/26/2002 +0200, Han Maenen wrote: > >First of all: I am NOT criticizing Jim Ellwell's choice of paper size.. > > > >But I think the expression 11" by 210 mm is highly irrational: multiplying ifp by metric. > > What Han and others are either forgetting or do not realize is that, for volume printing, the size of the finished item does NOT tell you the size of the paper purchased by the printer. Between margins for bleed and grip, and multiple-up pages, the original sheets can be MUCH larger. For example, my company's catalog is trimmed to 279x210 mm -- the original printed sheet is probably about 1 x 0.8 meters. > > This is the reason why books and catalogs come in all different sizes: the paper starts WAY larger, is trimmed to spec, and the printer does not care, nor do the paper manufacturers, nor do most users whether this "spec" is somebody's standard. > > For the same reason, switching Metric Today to A3 (A4 folded) may NOT improve the supply of metric paper, as Bill Hooper suggests, if the printer starts with oversize sheets. No one but printers buy these oversize sheets and the sheet size does not have to be metric to produce a metric product. > And unless you are involved in the production, you don't know the size of the original paper. > > My company's catalog is trimmed to 11" by 210 mm (279x210 mm), so that it is neither too long nor too wide for any storage mechanism -- I happen to think it is an excellent solution to the fact that we send the catalogs all over the world. It is not anyone's "standard", but so what? It sits on a shelf or a desk, and neither the shelf nor the desk cares a wit about its size. Jim Elwell Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
