[Ma-linux] Paper sizes, in the U.S.(a bit OT)

[Jay Berkenbilt]

I don't know if anyone ever replied to this.  The message is several
days old, but I don't see any follow-ups.

Alan McConnell <alan at patriot.net> wrote:

> But I am in touch with an English friend who does lots of (classical)
> music publishing, and he needs to know stuff about different paper
> sizes here in these U.S. of A.  So I turn to experts for help and
> advice.

A4 is 210mm x 297mm.  A3 is 297mm x 420mm, which you might notice is the
same as two A4 sheets side by side.  A2 is two A3's and so on, and A5 is
half an A4, etc.  You might notice that 297/210 is approximately
sqrt(2), which is how this all works.  This means you can always print 2
up at half size on the same paper size and everything fits perfectly,
which is a feature not present with US paper sizes.

Since A4 is close to letter and A3 is close to 11x17, you can usually
print A4 or A3 on letter or 11x17 with a little bit of scaling.  If you
have a PDF, you can print with Adobe Reader (and probably free stuff as
well) and do fit to page.  Usually the right thing will happen in my
experience.

> How likely is it that the "average person"(whoever that may be) will
> have access to the A3 and A4 formats my friend speaks of?  I conjecture
> not very, but I may be wrong.   In a sense my very idealistic friend
> is stabbing himself in the back, for the average classical musician
> American is much more likely to not bother to download the pieces that
> Merton Music is offering for free.  Rather they will do as I have
> done for years: buy the pieces already printed for a quite reasonable
> amount.

I've never seen A4 paper in the US.  I bought some one a Europe trip
because I was, at the time, interested in playing with mathematical
paper folding and found the sqrt(2) ratio to be a big advantage.  I
never got around to pursuing that product.  I wouldn't be surprised if
there are places in the US where you could find A4 paper.  But scaling
is probably good enough.  I don't think the "average person" would have
access to it though, and even if they did, a many US printers don't
have A4 or A3 paper trays, though may do as well.

-- 
Jay Berkenbilt <ejb at ql.org>