this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
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[–] heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 0 points 33 minutes ago

Why does A4 have an odd number of millimeters? Why not 290, flat?

[–] sleeperdouge@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago

I think this is a little bit outdated at least for the Philippines. Goverment documents now primarily use A4 to comply with ISO standards. Some places such as schools may sometimes use the letter size (commonly referred to as short size here) but A4 is now much more common.

[–] FluidBeef@quokk.au 13 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Canada should drive on the left to really stick it to the yanks.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Why would that upset New Englanders only? Pretty sure this would upset every American, not just the Yanks.

[–] Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 1 points 40 minutes ago

Hardly...

Yanks, Sox, Cubs, A's, 'Stros...

[–] tquid@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Canada almost switched in the 1970s, but lost its nerve

[–] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

TBH, I thought they did use A4- seems to me the letters I got from BanQ in Quebec were A4

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Quebec does things differently, often simply out of spite for the rest of the country. So I won't be surprised if they have adopted A4 provincially

[–] Chick0nPlayz@lemmy.world 28 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Surprised that many countries use the US version

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 1 points 30 minutes ago

Same, I figured 8 1/2 x 11 was yet another example of our pig-headed obstinance.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 128 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Damn, that Mercator projection making A4 look almost as big as Greenland...

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 33 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Remember Africa is about three times larger than Canada

[–] TheBloodFarts@lemmy.ca 10 points 5 hours ago

Pretty insane to consider that sort of scale, this projection really distorts reality

[–] huppakee@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)
[–] DamnianWayne@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

At least 2 football fields

[–] Trex202@lemmy.world 22 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It's a map of the largest PDF, world for scale

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 hours ago
[–] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 36 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

I'm American and have worked in corporate offices all my life and grew up around the printing industry.

A4/SI is super common here too. "Letter" is just something used by home users. But very often A4 is sold as "Letter A4" right next to the other paper.

Now "legal" print format is a true abomination and unfortunately is much less likely to be easily replaced.

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[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 67 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (13 children)

Oh, let's also remember that A4 is a member of beautiful variant of an "SI system for paper". Want a paper the size of an A4 folded double? We have A~~8~~5. Want something that folds perfectly to A4? A3. One more fold? A2.

  • Statement: "I want a piece of paper that I can fold twice to get exactly a US letter size."
  • Response: "You must be crazy."

Edit: Did a fat-fingering

[–] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

does all this A paper standerd business have to do with the fact that you can't fold any paper in half more than 8 times?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

And IIRC A0 is 1 m².

Beautiful.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 hours ago

really really close to, but not quite.

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 hours ago

american sizes do the same thing, just only five steps in ANSI sizes, and not really that well known outside of the industries that use the paper sizes, such as printing shops.

smallest being u.s. letter (A4 equivalent) is "ANSI A", 8.5x11in...

largest being the full sheet (A0 equivalent) is "ANSI E", 34x44in...

with the expected three steps between for B, C, and D.

going smaller than u.s. letter and ANSI A.. letter halved (4.25x5.5in) 'half letter' is a common notepad and post card size; and halved again (2.12x2.75in) is a common label size.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 42 points 14 hours ago (3 children)
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[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

They do have a paper that can fold once to get a US letter though; i am only posting about it because i only learned about it two years ago: 11x17, aka, "tabloid" size.

Some desktop printers can even print on it.

[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

"Letter" size is standardized as ANSI A, "Tabloid" as ANSI B, and something that could be folded twice to get letter would be ANSI C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size#Standardized_American_paper_sizes

These paper sizes are used in engineering.

[–] f314@lemmy.world 32 points 14 hours ago (11 children)

What on earth are you on about with those numbers? 😅

A0 is the base size, with an area of one square meter. Fold that in half and you get A1. Fold that in half and you get A2, and so on. Regular printer paper is A4. You’ll rarely, if ever, see sizes smaller than A6.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

I fat-fingered the A5, otherwise the numbers were right?

I'm aware how the system works, I just wrote about it using A4 as the "base". A3 is what you fold to get A4, A2 folds to give A3, etc.

I didn't know A0 was exactly 1m^2^ though, TIL!

[–] f314@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Want something that folds perfectly to A4? A3. One more fold? A2.

This made it sound like you meant that folding an A3 sheet twice gives A2 😅 Might just be my reading comprehension, though!

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 10 points 12 hours ago

I have a pocket notebook size A7. A6 is too big for some pockets.

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[–] hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 7 hours ago

The aspect ratio of the A series of paper is √2, so every doubling or halving of the size retains the same aspect ratio. If you want to save paper and print at half size, you can just do that and it works flawlessly. However doing it this way means very unmemorable decimal unit dimensions.

Half letter and tabloid are much taller than letter so you have to either have overly large margins on the top and bottom, or you have to reformat your document if you ever want to change the sizes.

Though specialty paper suppliers do sell 22x17 paper if you really want to double fold to get letter paper. 11x17 is twice the width of letter which works for printing bifold books in letter size. Its just the scaling aspect ratio thing. Sizes in multiples for bookmaking do exist in both systems.

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[–] volore@scribe.disroot.org 52 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (3 children)

Not a meme; I am an American and I think this would be the exact right kind of petty bullshit to respond with, please push for this, Canadians. It is exactly this kind of petty, stupid bullshit that Trump participates in and responds most to.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)

British Columbia basically did a similar thing by declaring permanent daylight savings time because, according to the premier, they're no longer going to wait for the US to move as well before moving themselves.

Except now the situation is objectively worse than it was before, because BC is geographically in the UTC-8 zone, but permanent Pacific Daylight Time is the same as permanent Mountain Standard Time (UTC-7). Except they don't call it Mountain Standard Time in BC, they stubbornly continue to insist they're in the UTC-8 zone. Except they don't call it "Pacific Daylight Time" either, they call it just "Pacific Time". No "Daylight". Despite the fact that their standard time is what the rest of North America calls Mountain Time.

They had four good choices, and chose none of them:

  • UTC-8 year round, call it "Pacific Standard Time"
  • UTC-7 year round, call it "Mountain Standard Time"
  • UTC-8 or UTC-7 year round, call it "Western Canada Time".

Decent idea, rubbish execution.

[–] VAK@lemmy.world 1 points 52 minutes ago

They probably just saved some paperwork. Anyway, all people care were the time zone difference, not name

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

Why call it anything? UTC-7 or -8 are explicit, less confusing internationally & shorter

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 hours ago

American style petty bullshit isn't going to accomplish anything. This kind of thing costs Canadians and doesn't impact the US at all. This is the exact kind of petty bullshit Trump does regularly since it's popular with Americans.

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