Card, Paper & Envelopes
There have been many standard sizes of paper at different times and in different countries, but today there are basically only two systems in place: the international standard (A4 and its siblings), and the North American sizes. more...
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The international standard: ISO 216
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The international paper size standard, ISO 216, is based on the metric system, with the base format being a sheet of paper measuring 1 m² in area. This standard has been adopted by all countries in the world except the United States and Canada. In Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines, despite the ISO standard having been officially adopted, the U.S. "Letter" format is still in common use.
The most widely known size in the ISO format is A4.
ISO paper sizes are all based on a single aspect ratio of the square root of two, or approximately 1:1.4142. The advantages of basing a paper size upon this ratio were already noted in 1768 by the German scientist Georg Lichtenberg (in a letter to Johann Beckmann). In the beginning of the twentieth century, Dr Walter Porstmann turned Lichtenberg's idea into a proper system of different paper sizes. Porstmann's system was introduced as a DIN standard (DIN 476) in Germany in 1922, replacing a vast variety of other paper formats. Even today the paper sizes are called "DIN A4" in everyday use in Germany.
The DIN 476 standard spread quickly to other countries, and before the outbreak of World War II it had been adopted by the following countries:
Belgium (1924);
Netherlands (1925);
Norway (1926);
Switzerland (1929);
Sweden (1930);
Soviet Union (1934);
Hungary (1938);
Italy (1939);
During the war it was adopted by Uruguay (1942), Argentina (1943) and Brazil (1943); and directly afterwards the standard continued to spread to other countries:
By 1975 so many countries were using the German system that it was established as an ISO standard, as well as the official United Nations document format. By 1977 A4 was the standard letter format in 88 of 148 countries, and today only the U.S. and Canada have not adopted the system.
The largest standard size, A0, has an area of 1 m². The long side of the sheet is calculated by taking the 4th root of 2, approximately 1.189, and the short side is the inverse of that number, approximately 0.841, and multiplying by one metre. A1 is formed by cutting a piece of A0 in half, which retains the aspect ratio. This particular measurement system was chosen in order to allow folding of one standard size into another, which cannot be accomplished with traditional paper sizes.
Brochures are made by using material at the next size up i.e. material at A3 is folded to make A4 brochures. Similarly, material at A4 is folded to make A5 brochures.
It also allows scaling without loss of image from one size to another. Thus an A4 page can be enlarged to A3 and retain the exact proportions of the original document. Office photocopiers in countries that use ISO 216 paper often have one tray filled with A4 and another filled with A3. A simple method is usually provided (e.g. one button press) to enlarge A4 to A3 or reduce A3 to A4. Thus an A4 brochure when open is A3 and can be placed on the copier and either printed directly onto the A3 paper or reduced to A4.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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