Hi, I’m not very good at finding answers, looking but can’t make it out.
I’m in the UK, paper is A4 not legal. 8d like to add an A4 crop to my options but can’t figure out how. I know it’s a very small difference but I’d really like the screen to represent the print as much as possible.
Any hints?
(As an aside, awesome work so far… I’m using not learning!!! More an enhance the photograph than create a dream person. Finding ART fantastic for it. I know it’s able to do far more, and one day I will explore, but today I just want to enhance)
The ratio is valid for all ISO 216 paper sizes (often referred to as “DIN AN” and “DIN BN". Therefore it makes sense to have only one entry for all of them. However, I agree that almost nobody recognizes “DIN EN ISO 216”, maybe it makes sense to have something similar to ‘ISO 216 (“DIN A4” ratio)’. But while I expect this to be understood in Germany, I don’t know about how these sizes are referred to elsewhere in the world.
Fun fact: A0 is 841 mm × 1189 mm = 999 949 mm^2, very close to 1 m^2.
You get A1 by halving A0, and so on. By having a side ratio of sqrt(2), that ratio is maintained when halving the sheet.
Thanks to the sqrt(2) ratio, one just has to remember the sides of one paper size (like 210*297mm = A4) to be able to mentally calculate the rest in the series.
Before metrification, paper sizes and weights were a real quagmire in the Imperial world. They measured a certain paper size (not a certain paper!) in lb per ream — but a ream of writing paper contained 480 sheets, while a ream of posters/printing paper contained 516 sheets.
A Royal sheet had one size when it is intended for writing, and another when meant for posters/printing…
ISO 216 is an international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the “A”, “B” and “C” series of paper sizes, including A4, the most commonly available paper size worldwide.
I am extremely grateful for the metric system in general. Regarding paper sizes, for business and official stuff (official letters, bank documents, quotations etc.) they make a lot of sense. I also used to be a big fan of the “A” sizes for everything, but then I learned a lot about the art of typesetting, and found that most typography people and designers dislike these sizes, in particular for books. I checked my bookshelf and found that almost none of the books, and in particular the more beautiful ones, were ISO sized, or even had an aspect ratio of sqrt(2). This made me think, and I must admit that I also do not like this aspect ratio as a size for books any more (probably same effect as xkcd: Kerning).
@paulmatth, I was referring in particular to my suggestion to replace “DIN EN ISO 216” by ‘ISO 216 (“DIN A4” ratio)’. Of course, ISO 216 is international, but here (Germany) nobody understands “ISO 216 A4” or “ISO A4” or just “A4”, while everybody calls it “DIN A4”. Just “A4” would require the hint that it’s about paper. However, the DIN is a German organization, and, as we saw in this thread, in other countries/languages, this size is referred to in different ways.
Maybe, as international version, one could name it ‘ISO 216 (“A4” paper ratio)’.
(in England and now in Finland)