6.0635 Rs: A4 Paper (the final words) (2/64)

Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 1 Apr 1993 12:42:53 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 6, No. 0635. Thursday, 1 Apr 1993.


(1) Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:14:05 PST (21 lines)
From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 6.0630 Rs: A4 Paper Redux

(2) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 93 17:30 WES (43 lines)
From: H.R.vanderLaan@RC.TUDelft.NL
Subject: Re: 6.0630 Rs: A4 Paper Redux

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 11:14:05 PST
From: cbf@athena.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 6.0630 Rs: A4 Paper Redux (6/115)

Thanks to all of you who have enlightened us on A4.

It turns out that in fact 11" form-fed paper is in fairly
widespread use in Europe (probably because the original
form-fed printers were of U.S. origin, so we can leave our
66 lines per inch alone for that. It will also work for
sheet-fed printers, with the obvious caveat that printers
using A4 paper will have larger bottom margins than those
using 11" paper.

I never cease to be amazed at the range of information HUMANIST
can provide.

Many thanks,

Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------54----
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 93 17:30 WES
From: H.R.vanderLaan@RC.TUDelft.NL
Subject: Re: 6.0630 Rs: A4 Paper Redux (6/115)

> 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

Yes, and a sheet A0 is exactly one square meter.

> 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

One square meter in golden section has sides of 841 x 1189 millimeters.
This leads to the following A-formats:

A0 841 x 1189
A1 594 x 841
A2 420 x 594
A3 279 x 420
A4 210 x 279
A5 148 x 210
A6 105 x 148
etcetera

> 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).

One side of a sheet of B0 has a length of exactly 1000 millimeters.
This leads to the following A-formats:

B0 1000 x 1414
B1 707 x 1000
B2 500 x 707
B3 353 x 500
B4 250 x 353
B5 176 x 250
B6 125 x 176
etcetera

Hans van der Laan (H.R.vanderLaan@RC.TUDelft.NL)