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It blows our hivemind that the United States doesn’t use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang).
Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America’s little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via your banking app, but come on - look how absolutely great it is to be European:
The American mind cannot comprehend this diagram
[Diagram of paper sizes as listed below]
ISO 216 A series papers formats
AO
A1
A3
A5
A7
A6
Et.
A4
Instead, Americans prostrate themselves to bizarrely-named paper types of seemingly random size: Letter, Legal, Tabloid (Ledger) and all other types of sordid nonsense. We’re not even going to include a picture because this is a family-friendly finance blog.
1.414, the magic number.
Aside from the 1 to √2 ratio, the area of A0 paper is exactly 1m². People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting.
From their website: “We’re ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. We develop and publish International Standards.”
Sadly, ISO in recent decade started to do bullshit. They don’t pay for standard development, they don’t employ anyone for standard development, they collect membership fees from national standards organizations, require payment to download most standards and don’t allow to copy published standards. Also they retroactively paywalled a lot of standards.
Which is awesome, because every number up halves the size. This, combined with the standard way that paper weights are given (e g. 80g/m2) allows you to easily calculate how much a piece of paper weights: 1 A4 80g/m2 weighs 5g (1/2^4 * 80g)
Now it makes even more sense!
People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting
how to make a good standard:
step 1: copy from DIN
Well, Germans are pretty anal about standards (thankfully) and they do them right, so why not copy them?
The world would be a better place if we copied good things more often.
Imagine all of Europe copied Dutch transportation-, German prostitution- and Portugese drug-policies
so why not copy them?
oh, I totally agree with you.
In fact standards are made to be copied. That’s like the entire point of them.
do they go down to A -1, A -2 and so on
No just A0, A1, etc. A5 being for cards, A4 being the average used in schoolbooks and such, with A3 mainly used for posters, never seen anything larger in everyday life.
Ad posters on the street are usually A2 to A0
Not officially, but unofficially there’s 2A0, 4A0 and so on. Bigger than that is rarely used however.
Wait… You can’t transfer money with a banking App???
I’ve been able to transfer money through my banking app for a while without issue. Not sure where that came from in the post, cause it’s not true lol.
Zelle is a thing with my banking app.
My sister has a credit union bank account and her app has it. I have PNC.
Not really sure about that one, I’ve been able to transfer money with my banks app for more than a decade. Not all US banks are created equal.
Not all US banks are created equal
I think that’s the issue. Also how common direct deposit for paycheques in the US? I hear it’s rare but in Canada, it’s the norm and all our banks here can do e-transfers.
I’ve had direct deposit for every job since around 2004, before that it was a paper check on payday. Really I signed up for direct deposit after my manager gave me a hard time when I came in to pick up my check on a day I called out sick.
I’ve had direct deposit at every job I’ve worked for over a decade. Before then, I only had one job that didn’t offer it, though I had friends with jobs that did have direct deposit. Very common to have it these days. Some jobs can even get you direct deposit for the amount you worked that very same day, so I’d work 8 hours and by the time I get home, I’d have my pay from that day, and it’s like that everyday.
Source: US citizen
It’s relatively common, unless you work for a typical cash pay job (usually labor jobs, like construction)
Yes. I can transfer money to someone just by knowing their phone number. I can do it on a Sunday afternoon and they get the money instantly. I haven’t used cash for more than a decade now. Haven’t used a card for at least 5 years.
dude devastated americans xD
fun fact: the length to width ratio of ISO 216, √2:1, is the same ratio as the tritone in an equal tempered 12-tone musical scale. If you fold A4 paper in half, you get a piece of paper with the same length to width ratio as before; analogously, if you invert a tritone, you get another tritone.
That is fun!
But is it a diminished fifth or augmented fourth?
Ackchyually…
As famously read from letter-sized sheets:
I know it should be a fun fact but I can’t quite grasp it.
I dunno, it doesn’t look so good once you get to “Etc.” size.
Especially those A20 cheat sheets are so damn hard to read
i hate it when they only give out A20 exam sheets
Eh, letter’s height to width ratio looks better.
TIL that there are different standards of paper sizes in other parts of the world. I never encountered this before despite living in Germany for 10 years, probably because the last time I was there was 30 years ago.
The annoying “letter” paper size is for some unknown reason what windows always sets as the paper size unless I change it to A4 manually. Naturally if I forget the printer won’t print. US paper sizing - annoying me on the other side of the Atlantic.
File I’m printing: A4 PDF
Default printer setting in Windows: A4
Default setting on printer itself: A4
Setting that gets chosen automatically in the print dialog: Letter
It’s a beautiful standard that works wonderfully until you have to deal with any actual measurements. 210 x 297 mm - so easy to remember and divide.
300-3 isn’t that hard to remember. also i don’t know why you would need to divide it. they’re both divisible by 3 if that helps.
I don’t disagree! And in the interest of fairness I feel compelled to include an obligatory xkcd:
Letter is 215.9mm x 279.4mm lmao
No it’s 8.5 by 11.
See? Easy. Also you really have to try to get your hands on something that’s a different size. 99 percent of printer paper is Letter.
8.5" is not any easier to divide than 297mm. Try dividing 8.5" by 8. What is that? 12 pebbles and 14 glibglobs each?
1" and a sixteenth.
Don’t bother, it seems the metric are allergic to fractions that aren’t irrational.
^/s
Ah yes - a system that uses both fractions and decimals!
It’s 1.06 Which is close enough to just do 1 inch cuts. Super easy. No possible better way to do it.
The only time I ever encountered letter was when I bought the D&D starter set.
I was confused as to why the paper had this weird size. Then I remember it being a game made in the US.
Well that solves it if WOTC used it then we need to get rid of it. Burn it in a fire. And we’ll need a new standard now. We could use the ISO standard but Western Union just handed me a thousand bucks to base it off telegram cards. Oh well.
99 percent of printer paper is Letter.
Maybe in America. Over here you won’t be able to find Letter it’s all A4.
Well yeah. The point is most people never have to interact with any other size.
Pretty much the same is true everywhere else though. A4 is just extremely common. All documents are printed in A4.
But if you want another size for a sign, blueprint or maybe a postage sticker it’s easy to get another size. If you want A5 just print the same thing twice on an A4 and cut it in half after or cut the paper in half first and then print on it.
If you want A3 you will obviously need a bigger printer (or you just tape two A4 together if it doesn’t need to look good.)
I think I screwed up the assignment somewhere? For some reason the tape sticks to my letter sheet but not my A4 sheet and my construction paper crayon drawing is still too big for them to create a proper border?
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I think we’re on different levels. I’m solely here to make fun of both groups thinking they’re superior.
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Why does this satire thing have to be so hard?
Good thing Americans don’t use metric, that sure would be an awkward size.
Excuse me, I believe you meant to say:
215 57/64mm x 279 38/96 mm
i mean, i’ve never needed to divide the size of a standard sheet of paper - if i need a smaller variant, i can just fold it in half and cut it. when working with paper, it’s pretty easy to do physical math, and you rarerly need something that’s perfect down to the millimetre
regarding the size- it’s just something you learn through life. school supplies lists typically specify the size of notebooks and paper you need to buy in centimetres, so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32
so year over year, you quickly learn that A4 is 22:29.7, and the slightly bigger standard notebooks are 24:32
Pretty sure you just justified Americans using Fahrenheit ;)
how so?
Arbitrary numbers become habit
A4 is rectangle with 1:sqrt(2) aspect ratio and 1/16 m^2 area.
1/16? That doesn’t seem very metric. They should have made it a tenth like everything else metric. That would be an easy system.
^/s
i mean, celsius has arbitrary numbers too - human is 37°c, ambiant is 17°c, cooking is 180°c, etc.
You forgot the /s
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Damn, you beat me to it.
Not-super-fun fact: an 8.5 x 11 inch paper can be useful if you lack a ruler in an American office & you need to measure an inch or a foot.
If you fold the paper like in an image I’ll try to attach, the hypotenuse is 12.01 inches.
Edit: then you fold the 12.01 inch side against the 11 inch side to get a 1.01 inch measurement
Not exact, but good enough if you need to know your neck size to buy a fancy shirt online - not that I would ever waste my corporation’s time that way!
Oh, that’s simple and useful.
And most people here know that an A4 is 21 (exactly) by 30 (roughly) cm, which you can use (surprisingly) use for measurement aswell.
21x29.7
This number is permanently stored in my memory, just like 1€ = 6.55957F
Not only that, if you know your A4, you can do all paper sizes in you head: A3 has A4’s long side as it’s short side, and A4’s short side x2 for it’s long side. Rinse and repeat.
I didn’t know Euro and Farad were related :O
What a nightmare
How does that work? 8.5^2 + 11^2 is 193.25, square root of that is 13.9. Where does 12.01 come from?
Huh. . That’s weird. I could swear I double checked my math before I posted this One Dumb Trick online years and years ago…
Found the mistake, I had skipped a step, updated original post
Oh, that makes a lot more sense now.
Not-super-fun fact: you can measure in metric with school notebook paper.
Each sqare is 0.5 by 0.5 cm.
EDIT: 0.5 cm, not mm. For measuring 0.5mm I can use 0.5 mm mechanical pencil lead.
Also there is coordinate paper:
0.1 by 0.1 cm. Or 1 mm grid.
Tiny nitpick: I think you meant 0.5 by 0.5 cm (or 5 by 5 mm).
Also there is coordinate paper:
1 by 1 mm.
Yes, sorry. You are correct
I love how that OP’s solution requires an inexact technique to achieve an even less exact measurement. Like Americans really out here being proud of the stupidest shit
I use it a lot if i need to draw something that is x long. If you do a lot of graphs for example you can use the measurements on your ruler.
Correcting myself: 0.5 cm, not mm.
For graphs you can use graph paper with 1 mm grid.
Not exact
The motto of the whole imperial unit system.
Oh no, it’s getting worse!
Lol, people find the silliest things to be angry and indignant about.
Found the American.
What an idiotic thing to say in a comment to a post not written by an American, that’s complaining about Americans.
Sorry, ya lost me there, huh?
There are easier ways to find us! (get a map, ask strangers to point at anywhere but North America; the first incorrect answer or anger response will probably be one of us)
I guess someone never used ISO 216.
idk why the image says “european”, the standard is worldwide. only north america and parts of latin america don’t use it afaik.
I know Brazil uses the A# format, dunno about other latin countries.
A Sharp?
no A-Hashtag you dummy
A-pound
AOctothorpe
nah that wpuld be A-£
Nah you mean A-lbs
That’s 12 A-Inch in imperial system isn’t it?
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Japan also has their own system.
Japanese use JIS but A size is the same with ISO so there’s no confusion here. For B size there’s slight difference in JIS and ISO, but as end user I hardly print anything other than A4 so haven’t encountered problems myself.
