Re: Paper size

On Thu, 2 May 2002, Markus Kuhn wrote:
> > > ...I'd like to warmly encourage people in North America to start
> > > using A4 paper. 
> > Why would we?
> 
> For the exact same reason you should switch to the metric system...

Unfortunately, there isn't the same incentive.  Paper size is basically
arbitrary; it doesn't impinge on everything else the way the units system
does.  There's nothing magic about 210x297mm that makes anything easier. 
The advantages of the coherent set of sizes are relatively minor, nowhere
near comparable to the advantages of the metric system.  So this just
doesn't look like a big improvement.

(And of course, even the much greater advantages of the metric system
haven't yet sold the US on switching to it...)

It might actually be easier to sell a proposal that *everybody* switch to
a set of sizes based on PA4.  Spreading the pain around equally is often
better politics than minimizing the total amount of it.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx