3 ms·

Being unaware of paper sizes is baffling to me - where I live, letter and legal paper are common but I’m entirely aware of ISO216 paper sizes.

Symbiote 2y ago
In a country using ISO paper, national paper sizes of one of the few places not using this standard are obscure. I've never seen it in any office or stationary shop in Europe. It's available online, at a premium.
n3storm 2y ago
True, any page oriented software like LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, will show you US Letter sizes and US Letter Envelope sizes and you may have messed up with printing on wrong size... but as other posters say, maybe this days nobody prints on real paper anymore...
- btasker 2y ago
  They all default to ISO sizes for me. If I format the page size, Libreoffice does offer "Letter" and "Legal". GIMP shows them as "US Letter" and "US Legal" but again they're not the default. It wouldn't surprise me if most non-US users hadn't seen them at all, and certainly not that they don't realise the US uses a different size.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    It's still problematic the other way around - you try to print that PDF on A4, but it's formatted for US Letter. In most cases it still doesn't matter, either because software defaults to scaling to fit, or else because the margins are large enough that it works out even if printed in true size. But sometimes stars align and then you learn about those weird paper sizes.
remram 2y ago
Odd take. It seems perfectly natural that the country using different sizes from everybody else would be aware of that fact, but that a country using the same size as 95% of the world might not know about the weirdo sizes used by those 5%.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Fair but if you’re going to diss, at least be aware it’s not just one country :) (I’ve never lived in the country you’re thinking of, and all the countries I’ve lived in use non-ISO216 paper sizes).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
reddalo 2y ago
I live in Italy and I've never seen a normal "office" paper sheet which is not A4.
cjs_ac 2y ago
It's one thing to know that the US, Canada and the Philippines don't use the same paper sizes as the other 190 countries in the world; it's quite another to be given a physical example for the first time in your life.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  You missed at least one other country that uses “US” paper sizes.
  - swores 2y ago
    Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of. For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
      There are more Letter countries than just those four. Nicely covered with the “I could be wrong” though.
      - swores 2y ago
        Last time I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you at least thought your comment was worth posting, now I assume you're just a troll and am blocking so I won't see your comments again.
        loloquwowndueo 2y ago
        What’s more trollish than telling someone “I’m blocking you because you’re a troll”? If you’re going to block me just block me, don’t owe any explanations to me. You’re so funny heheh
globular-toast 2y ago
It's exceedingly rare to encounter US paper sizes in the UK and I expect the rest of Europe too. I've only received these from two places: the FSF and Donald Knuth.
OJFord 2y ago
They're not just uncommon, they're not used at all. You will only see US legal in the UK if an American company/person sends it to you, how often do you think that happens? I've had it maybe once or twice, but you could easily never see it, especially people born ~this century growing up with less paper of any size anyway.
hayleox 2y ago
One time at my old job I was trying to load the printer, and I said something like "Oh shoot, these are oversized sheets; I need the 8.5x11." My coworker looked at me like I was crazy. "The what?" "The normal printer paper, the 8.5 by 11 inch paper" "Why do you know the exact size of printer paper??" I did not know how to respond to this question.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  Whenever someone questions what you know, the correct answer is “why don’t you?” - I will not be trivia-shamed!
- pavon 2y ago
  Ha, I'm trying to remember where I learned that as well. I know we covered it in drafting where we learned an 8.5x11 A paper is half a sheet of 11x17 B paper which is half a sheet of 17x22 C paper, and so on. But I thought I knew the size of A paper long before that, and that it was common knowledge, though I can't think of where or why I would have needed to know. Then again I also know that legal paper is 8.5x14 even though I have never had to use it.
  - omegaham 2y ago
    Grade school for me - teachers would say "8.5x11" instead of "letter size" or even just "printer paper." I don't know why they did it, and I assume it's for the same reason that I say it too. It's probably what their teachers said to them!
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Because that’s the size of the paper.
rswail 2y ago
The problem is that the rest of the world is not aware of US sizes. Thus HP printers continually displaying "PC LOAD LETTER" on printers outside the US dealing with documents generated by people in the US.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
  On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :)
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :) Only if there is an issue with the rollers or something and it can't feed the paper from the paper cassette. No one ever wants to read the manuals or do basic troubleshooting though. Hell newer ones have a menu on them that will walk you through each of the troubleshooting steps, but people would rather put a post-it on it saying it's broken.
    - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
      I was joking :)
- BalinKing 2y ago
  I never realized that “LETTER” in that error referred to paper size—no printer I’ve had has actually given that error, so I only ever heard about it through oblique references to Office Space and such. It makes so much more sense now…
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    The 'PC' part is paper cassette, it's the printer literally telling you to load letter sized paper into the paper cassette, but everyone acts like it's some mysterious message that's impossible to figure out.

Symbiote 2y ago

In a country using ISO paper, national paper sizes of one of the few places not using this standard are obscure. I've never seen it in any office or stationary shop in Europe. It's available online, at a premium.

n3storm 2y ago

True, any page oriented software like LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, will show you US Letter sizes and US Letter Envelope sizes and you may have messed up with printing on wrong size... but as other posters say, maybe this days nobody prints on real paper anymore...

btasker 2y ago
They all default to ISO sizes for me. If I format the page size, Libreoffice does offer "Letter" and "Legal". GIMP shows them as "US Letter" and "US Legal" but again they're not the default. It wouldn't surprise me if most non-US users hadn't seen them at all, and certainly not that they don't realise the US uses a different size.
- int_19h 2y ago
  It's still problematic the other way around - you try to print that PDF on A4, but it's formatted for US Letter. In most cases it still doesn't matter, either because software defaults to scaling to fit, or else because the margins are large enough that it works out even if printed in true size. But sometimes stars align and then you learn about those weird paper sizes.

remram 2y ago

Odd take. It seems perfectly natural that the country using different sizes from everybody else would be aware of that fact, but that a country using the same size as 95% of the world might not know about the weirdo sizes used by those 5%.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
Fair but if you’re going to diss, at least be aware it’s not just one country :) (I’ve never lived in the country you’re thinking of, and all the countries I’ve lived in use non-ISO216 paper sizes).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

reddalo 2y ago

I live in Italy and I've never seen a normal "office" paper sheet which is not A4.

cjs_ac 2y ago

It's one thing to know that the US, Canada and the Philippines don't use the same paper sizes as the other 190 countries in the world; it's quite another to be given a physical example for the first time in your life.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
You missed at least one other country that uses “US” paper sizes.
- swores 2y ago
  Thanks for such an enlightening comment in which you were too lazy to write a 13th word naming the country you were thinking of. For anyone else curious as I was: Mexico is the 4th country, and I don't believe there are any others (but I could be wrong).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    There are more Letter countries than just those four. Nicely covered with the “I could be wrong” though.
    - swores 2y ago
      Last time I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you at least thought your comment was worth posting, now I assume you're just a troll and am blocking so I won't see your comments again.
      - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
        What’s more trollish than telling someone “I’m blocking you because you’re a troll”? If you’re going to block me just block me, don’t owe any explanations to me. You’re so funny heheh

globular-toast 2y ago

It's exceedingly rare to encounter US paper sizes in the UK and I expect the rest of Europe too. I've only received these from two places: the FSF and Donald Knuth.

OJFord 2y ago

They're not just uncommon, they're not used at all. You will only see US legal in the UK if an American company/person sends it to you, how often do you think that happens? I've had it maybe once or twice, but you could easily never see it, especially people born ~this century growing up with less paper of any size anyway.

hayleox 2y ago

One time at my old job I was trying to load the printer, and I said something like "Oh shoot, these are oversized sheets; I need the 8.5x11." My coworker looked at me like I was crazy. "The what?" "The normal printer paper, the 8.5 by 11 inch paper" "Why do you know the exact size of printer paper??" I did not know how to respond to this question.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
Whenever someone questions what you know, the correct answer is “why don’t you?” - I will not be trivia-shamed!
pavon 2y ago
Ha, I'm trying to remember where I learned that as well. I know we covered it in drafting where we learned an 8.5x11 A paper is half a sheet of 11x17 B paper which is half a sheet of 17x22 C paper, and so on. But I thought I knew the size of A paper long before that, and that it was common knowledge, though I can't think of where or why I would have needed to know. Then again I also know that legal paper is 8.5x14 even though I have never had to use it.
- omegaham 2y ago
  Grade school for me - teachers would say "8.5x11" instead of "letter size" or even just "printer paper." I don't know why they did it, and I assume it's for the same reason that I say it too. It's probably what their teachers said to them!
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Because that’s the size of the paper.

rswail 2y ago

The problem is that the rest of the world is not aware of US sizes. Thus HP printers continually displaying "PC LOAD LETTER" on printers outside the US dealing with documents generated by people in the US.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago
On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :)
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >On don’t worry, they also show PC LOAD LETTER in the US even when the correct paper size is loaded :) Only if there is an issue with the rollers or something and it can't feed the paper from the paper cassette. No one ever wants to read the manuals or do basic troubleshooting though. Hell newer ones have a menu on them that will walk you through each of the troubleshooting steps, but people would rather put a post-it on it saying it's broken.
  - loloquwowndueo 2y ago
    I was joking :)
BalinKing 2y ago
I never realized that “LETTER” in that error referred to paper size—no printer I’ve had has actually given that error, so I only ever heard about it through oblique references to Office Space and such. It makes so much more sense now…
- Suppafly 2y ago
  The 'PC' part is paper cassette, it's the printer literally telling you to load letter sized paper into the paper cassette, but everyone acts like it's some mysterious message that's impossible to figure out.