3 ms·

My experience of every modern printer I've seen of Oriental manufacture and that I've used in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia are essentially identical when

My experience of every modern printer I've seen of Oriental manufacture and that I've used in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia are essentially identical when it comes to paper sizes. All cassettes are large enough to take American Quarto/Letter size and have adjustments/paper restraining guides that easily cover both sizes. It's possible that there are printers being imported into the US that have nonadjustable cassettes but I've never seen any (not in recent decades anyway). Even decades ago the HP LaserJet II and III would take both sizes. BTW, I still have a a fully functional LJ III bought around 1994. As far as I'm aware, there are no printer manufacturers that manufacture normal office type printers left in the US, everything now comes from Asia. Edit: However, in the US reams of letter size are the norm whereas nowadays it's almost impossible to Letter size in any other country. It's been a problem for me because I've had to produce manuals in both paper sizes (depending on which country I was working in at the time). Same with the ring binders which are slightly different sizes not to mention that the US often only uses 3-ring binders whereas everywhere else they're 4-ring and the hole spacings are incompatible.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Which is why literally the second sentence of the comment you responded to is: > Most can accommodate A4 but the defaults need to be changed, you need to arrange new suppliers of office supplies (A4 is less prevalent in the US than Letter size) etc. Most Americans doing printing are doing so for Americans, and doing so in an American market that primarily supports Letter size. If you‘re doing localization for other markets, paper site is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things compared to much larger hurdles like translation. The location of manufacture ultimately has very little to do with what the consuming market is asking for. Just because most electronic goods are made in China doesn‘t mean we need to switch to Chinese style plugs and sockets.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  Nevertheless, the real issue is about the failure of the US to adopt the metric system, and similarly the UK to a lesser extent (UK's already supposed to be metric but it acts as if it isn't). Read my reply to Symbiote. As I said in a HN post only a few days ago, in most things Australia is a follower not a leader but it got it right with the introduction of the metric system. During which it banned the use of Imperial units (measurement). For example, one couldn't buy a 12-inch rule, only a 30 cm one. After everyone had gotten used to the change the rules were relaxed and some Imperial stuff could be used but most measurements still had to remain metric - fuel in liters, food in kg etc. One of the reasons the changeover worked well was that kids learned metric from the outset at achool and if adults didn't want to appear stupid in front of them they had to learn to adjust and they did. In the UK that never happened to the same extent.
pseingatl 4y ago
Everywhere else four ring binders? I think not. The most common standard outside North America is two ring.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  For a manual or other documentation supplied in a ring binder, the stronger 4 ring version would be much more common.

bobthepanda 4y ago

Which is why literally the second sentence of the comment you responded to is: > Most can accommodate A4 but the defaults need to be changed, you need to arrange new suppliers of office supplies (A4 is less prevalent in the US than Letter size) etc. Most Americans doing printing are doing so for Americans, and doing so in an American market that primarily supports Letter size. If you‘re doing localization for other markets, paper site is pretty trivial in the grand scheme of things compared to much larger hurdles like translation. The location of manufacture ultimately has very little to do with what the consuming market is asking for. Just because most electronic goods are made in China doesn‘t mean we need to switch to Chinese style plugs and sockets.

hilbert42 4y ago
Nevertheless, the real issue is about the failure of the US to adopt the metric system, and similarly the UK to a lesser extent (UK's already supposed to be metric but it acts as if it isn't). Read my reply to Symbiote. As I said in a HN post only a few days ago, in most things Australia is a follower not a leader but it got it right with the introduction of the metric system. During which it banned the use of Imperial units (measurement). For example, one couldn't buy a 12-inch rule, only a 30 cm one. After everyone had gotten used to the change the rules were relaxed and some Imperial stuff could be used but most measurements still had to remain metric - fuel in liters, food in kg etc. One of the reasons the changeover worked well was that kids learned metric from the outset at achool and if adults didn't want to appear stupid in front of them they had to learn to adjust and they did. In the UK that never happened to the same extent.

pseingatl 4y ago

Everywhere else four ring binders? I think not. The most common standard outside North America is two ring.

Symbiote 4y ago
For a manual or other documentation supplied in a ring binder, the stronger 4 ring version would be much more common.