8 ms·

The article sadly misses the root of the An sizes. A0 has an area of 1m^2, setting its dimensions and defining the rest of the sizes. Quite genius! The B sizes

The article sadly misses the root of the An sizes. A0 has an area of 1m^2, setting its dimensions and defining the rest of the sizes. Quite genius! The B sizes start at B0 with a length on the short side of 1m, then follow the same pattern. The C sizes, often used for envelopes, are defined as the geometric mean between the equivalent A and B size. As a child of an architect, when I was a kid my dad would bring old A0 drawings home as paper we could draw and paint on the back of. Loved it. - Edit: it does mention it, I skimmed it too fast…

tiagod 4y ago
> As a child of an architect, when I was a kid my dad would bring old A0 drawings home as paper we could draw and paint on the back of. Loved it. You brought me memories of being a very small kid drawing on A0 roll scraps bigger than me on the floor of my parents' studio :)
- samwillis 4y ago
  Those cardboard tubes the A0 drawings where stored in were brilliant for building stuff with, and even more fun as a later teenager having parties - stick one end in a fire pit and they become fire cannons, a good 4-5ft of flame out the top…
ricardobeat 4y ago
It mentions A0, the 1sqm area, then goes into paper weights. You might have accidentally skipped that section.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It's pretty handy that 1 A4 sheet at 80gsm weighs 5 grams (A4 sheet area: 1/(2^4) = 1/16 of a square metre) * (standard paper weight of 80 grams per square metre) = (5 grams per A4 80gsm sheet). Would have been useful for calculating postage.
  - chrismorgan 4y ago
    A few weeks ago my sister told me of a proposal for some contract that she’d been working on, and it ended up being 1600 pages, mostly double-sided A4, and printed in quadruplicate, and I rapidly worked out in my head, purely from the memory that A0 is 1m², that each subsequent paper size halves the area, and that 80g/m² is a common weight: that that was going to be something like 16kg of dead tree that was probably just going to clog up filing cabinets somewhere and mostly never actually be referred to. If I did this more often I’d remember 5g per sheet, but the mere fact that all this stuff is simple ratios and unit calculations means you can calculate it all from first principles quite easily. It’s really handy.
  - Biganon 4y ago
    I'm a teaching assistant, and I use this calculation every time I have to organize a written exam "so every students needs 11 sheets of paper... times 234 students... times 5 grams... OK I need help to bring everything to the exam building"
gilleain 4y ago
Also, when it comes to envelopes: "This means that C4 is slightly larger than A4, and slightly smaller than B4. The practical usage of this is that a letter written on A4 paper fits inside a C4 envelope, and both A4 paper and C4 envelope fits inside a B4 envelope." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#C_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#C_series
- jeff-davis 4y ago
  To fit A4 into a C4 envelope, do you fold in in half or thirds or fourths?
  - orthoxerox 4y ago
    You don't. If you fold it in half you can fit it into a C5 envelope.
  - NeoTar 4y ago
    Unfolded
  - rocqua 4y ago
    Within this entire system, its all about succesive halvings. So folding into thirds (which is horribly difficult to do) is never needed.
    - woevdbz 4y ago
      Not only difficult, but prone to being sliced when using a paper opener. Paper folded in four should be placed in the envelope with the fold at the bottom so that it doesn't get cut when slicing the paper at the top of the envelope.
    - maxnoe 4y ago
      That's not true, the most common envelope at least in Germany is DL for DIN Long [1], which requires folding A4 in thirds and there is a corresponding DIN norm on how to print fold marks to aid the folding in thirds [2] [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_lang https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_lang [2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falzmarke https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falzmarke
foobarian 4y ago
I grew up in Europe and I did love the A-n system for its mathematical elegance. But having moved to the US where they use a different size without the halving property I found that I don't really miss it at all in practice and the only benefit I really derived from it was a bit of smug intellectual superiority. I find that a lot of the value of these size systems comes from network effects of many other things in the environment being compatible, such as printers, paper cutters, rulers, etc. With Letter I like that the dimensions are almost whole imperial values (8.5 x 11), while TBH I always found it annoying that A4 had so many significant digits. It has a very technocratic vibe to it - user is not as important as having nice mathematical properties, damnit! :-)
- noSyncCloud 4y ago
  Why would anyone care about "almost whole imperial values"?
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    The US still uses imperial measurements.
    - vincent-manis 4y ago
      Actually, no. The US gallon (3.785L) is not the same as the imperial gallon (4.546L), a point which made me see red when Canadian opponents to metrication argued that we must keep the gallon because the US is our biggest trading partner.
      - HideousKojima 4y ago
        The real reason Canadians and Brits should have opposed metrification: the transition wasn't ever 100% completed leading to horrifying Frankensystems where Brits buy meat by the kilo but measure their own weight in stone. Or Canadians still measuring train rail distances in miles.
gorgoiler 4y ago
Your point about childhood really struck a warm note with me. I feel one of the most important and loving things my parents did for me as a child was ensuring a limitless supply of stationery.

tiagod 4y ago

> As a child of an architect, when I was a kid my dad would bring old A0 drawings home as paper we could draw and paint on the back of. Loved it. You brought me memories of being a very small kid drawing on A0 roll scraps bigger than me on the floor of my parents' studio :)

samwillis 4y ago
Those cardboard tubes the A0 drawings where stored in were brilliant for building stuff with, and even more fun as a later teenager having parties - stick one end in a fire pit and they become fire cannons, a good 4-5ft of flame out the top…

ricardobeat 4y ago

It mentions A0, the 1sqm area, then goes into paper weights. You might have accidentally skipped that section.

HPsquared 4y ago
It's pretty handy that 1 A4 sheet at 80gsm weighs 5 grams (A4 sheet area: 1/(2^4) = 1/16 of a square metre) * (standard paper weight of 80 grams per square metre) = (5 grams per A4 80gsm sheet). Would have been useful for calculating postage.
- chrismorgan 4y ago
  A few weeks ago my sister told me of a proposal for some contract that she’d been working on, and it ended up being 1600 pages, mostly double-sided A4, and printed in quadruplicate, and I rapidly worked out in my head, purely from the memory that A0 is 1m², that each subsequent paper size halves the area, and that 80g/m² is a common weight: that that was going to be something like 16kg of dead tree that was probably just going to clog up filing cabinets somewhere and mostly never actually be referred to. If I did this more often I’d remember 5g per sheet, but the mere fact that all this stuff is simple ratios and unit calculations means you can calculate it all from first principles quite easily. It’s really handy.
- Biganon 4y ago
  I'm a teaching assistant, and I use this calculation every time I have to organize a written exam "so every students needs 11 sheets of paper... times 234 students... times 5 grams... OK I need help to bring everything to the exam building"

gilleain 4y ago

Also, when it comes to envelopes: "This means that C4 is slightly larger than A4, and slightly smaller than B4. The practical usage of this is that a letter written on A4 paper fits inside a C4 envelope, and both A4 paper and C4 envelope fits inside a B4 envelope." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#C_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#C_series

jeff-davis 4y ago
To fit A4 into a C4 envelope, do you fold in in half or thirds or fourths?
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  You don't. If you fold it in half you can fit it into a C5 envelope.
- NeoTar 4y ago
  Unfolded
- rocqua 4y ago
  Within this entire system, its all about succesive halvings. So folding into thirds (which is horribly difficult to do) is never needed.
  - woevdbz 4y ago
    Not only difficult, but prone to being sliced when using a paper opener. Paper folded in four should be placed in the envelope with the fold at the bottom so that it doesn't get cut when slicing the paper at the top of the envelope.
  - maxnoe 4y ago
    That's not true, the most common envelope at least in Germany is DL for DIN Long [1], which requires folding A4 in thirds and there is a corresponding DIN norm on how to print fold marks to aid the folding in thirds [2] [1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_lang https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_lang [2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falzmarke https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falzmarke

foobarian 4y ago

I grew up in Europe and I did love the A-n system for its mathematical elegance. But having moved to the US where they use a different size without the halving property I found that I don't really miss it at all in practice and the only benefit I really derived from it was a bit of smug intellectual superiority. I find that a lot of the value of these size systems comes from network effects of many other things in the environment being compatible, such as printers, paper cutters, rulers, etc. With Letter I like that the dimensions are almost whole imperial values (8.5 x 11), while TBH I always found it annoying that A4 had so many significant digits. It has a very technocratic vibe to it - user is not as important as having nice mathematical properties, damnit! :-)

noSyncCloud 4y ago
Why would anyone care about "almost whole imperial values"?
- egypturnash 4y ago
  The US still uses imperial measurements.
  - vincent-manis 4y ago
    Actually, no. The US gallon (3.785L) is not the same as the imperial gallon (4.546L), a point which made me see red when Canadian opponents to metrication argued that we must keep the gallon because the US is our biggest trading partner.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      The real reason Canadians and Brits should have opposed metrification: the transition wasn't ever 100% completed leading to horrifying Frankensystems where Brits buy meat by the kilo but measure their own weight in stone. Or Canadians still measuring train rail distances in miles.

gorgoiler 4y ago

Your point about childhood really struck a warm note with me. I feel one of the most important and loving things my parents did for me as a child was ensuring a limitless supply of stationery.