Comment by umanwizard a day ago
True, but I don’t understand why this would make letter size confusing to Americans. European office workers are not sitting around marveling at the mathematical elegance of the definition of A series paper. It just doesn’t matter in daily life.
Can you explain concretely why it matters in daily life that I can cut the paper posters are printed on in half several times to wind up with paper of the size that letters are printed on, and that these have the same aspect ratio? Why would I ever want to do that / why should I care that it's possible?
I'm not trying to be combative; I genuinely don't know.
Not the paper, the stuff on the paper scales the same. Want a large poster and then also handbills to give out? They're identical. Got 15 full size sheets of colour information but now want to turn it into a pocket handout ? No problem, it's the same thing but smaller.
This feels obvious - of course it works like that, until your paper sizes aren't using this ratio (which the US ones don't) and then the frustration is apparent.
Isn't the important part here just using a consistent aspect ratio?
Like the fact that the aspect ratio chosen allows manufacturers to just use one base sheet and then subdivide it into smaller page sizes is convenient for manufacturers, but it's not a necessary property for scaling the contents of the page.
Here in the US we just print posters at whatever size we want. We don’t have to rely on someone to have standardized the sizes of posters. Large–format printers often go up to eight feet wide, so you can print something as big as a wall if you want (and as long as you like, because they print on a _roll_ of paper instead of a sheet). Computers have made elegant ratios irrelevant.
But if you really think it’s important, then you can consider a series of sizes like tabloid, letter, and memo to be equivalent to A3, A4, and A5. Each is exactly half the area of the previous, and can be had by dividing the larger size in half along the longer side.
> It just doesn’t matter in daily life.
Like a lot of mathematics it does matter in your daily life but you actually just don't think about it because of course this works - unless you're an American and so no it doesn't.
The A-series paper sizes mean everything scales very naturally. Poster? Pamphlet? It's just the same ratios again but bigger or smaller. There is a single design where this works, and that's why the A-series exists, you can't just pick anything, only this works.