I would say that there are at least two good reasons. A4 is not a relevant standard in the biggest market (USA) and A4 proportions are objectively not great for reading (too elongated).
A4 proportions are objectively not great for reading (too elongated).
I spent the first 30 years of my life in the UK and US letter paper always looked too squat when I encountered it at work. I've spent the past 11 years living in the US. I recently dug out some old papers on A4 and they looked weirdly elongated. It's surprising how strong the perceived weirdness of paper dimensions could be and and how easily it was changed. Seems like it's totally subjective and we could probably be comfortable reading in many proportions.
My favorite proportion, enforced by various bits of TeX documentation set up to be printed on either side of the pond, is 210mm wide (A4 width), but 11" high (letter-sized height).
It's a workable compromise which ensures that all versions of a document have the same pagination/index.
It is a very common occurrence, since you can print/photocopy two pages side-by-side on one sheet without any loss.
>
> Photocopiers and printers outside America include buttons for this.
It's a standard feature of photocopiers in the US too.
A4 proportions are objectively not great for reading (too elongated).
This statement is purely subjective. It is false in general and there's nothing objective about it. I've read thousands of pages of A4 with no problems, and in fact I'd say it's great.
No one mentioned books, but standard paperback book sizes are actually even more elongated than A4 (but smaller). A4 is used a lot in academia for papers, theses, lecture notes, etc., and that's mainly what I've read in that size.
It's not about the aspect ratio, but the total line length measured in characters. If you pay attention you will realize that most published papers either have two columns or large margins, like the standard LaTeX article layout.
Seeing that this product is not targeted at the US and might never even make it there, I'm not sure that's relevant. A4 documents will either be cut off or squished into a smaller space to fit all, so the proportions of the screen are also not really relevant when that's the proportions of the document.
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I would say that there are at least two good reasons. A4 is not a relevant standard in the biggest market (USA) and A4 proportions are objectively not great for reading (too elongated).
I spent the first 30 years of my life in the UK and US letter paper always looked too squat when I encountered it at work. I've spent the past 11 years living in the US. I recently dug out some old papers on A4 and they looked weirdly elongated. It's surprising how strong the perceived weirdness of paper dimensions could be and and how easily it was changed. Seems like it's totally subjective and we could probably be comfortable reading in many proportions.
My favorite proportion, enforced by various bits of TeX documentation set up to be printed on either side of the pond, is 210mm wide (A4 width), but 11" high (letter-sized height).
It's a workable compromise which ensures that all versions of a document have the same pagination/index.
You could also store paper with those proportions in American file cabinets without folding.
And they can be stored in A4-sized cabinets w/o difficulty as well.
I'm curious if there's a reason, or just accidental quirk of your comment, that you gave one dimension in mm and the other in inches?
Because that’s what the standards are specified as?
Ah thanks, hadn't stopped and thought about "letter-sized" being an American standard.
I still think it's odd to not translate one or the other if describing a 2D size, though.
I wasn't using my Mac where I have a Service which will do dimension calculations/unit conversions on the fly.
Type:
select it and choose Safari | Services | Calculate and Replace (or hit command #)I don't work with paper much, so the squares I stare into most are either wide or narrow and high.
To me A4 looks weirdly fat/short/square-ish on first look.
On a longer look I think it looks very nice (especially so knowing why the ratio was chosen).
In general though, I prefer narrower columns for reading (closer to A5), so I don't know why it should be even wider/shorter.
My understanding was that the advantages of A4 are more practical than aesthetic. Is that not true?
The oft-cited reason is that you can fold A4 in half, etc. to form other standardized paper sizes.
Which sounds nice, but in practice just doesn't come up all that often.
For you, and even then for you directly.
Papermakers definitely benefit from this standard, which indirectly benefits you.
And from personal experience, being able to turn any stack of A4 papers into an A5 'zine is great.
It is a very common occurrence, since you can print/photocopy two pages side-by-side on one sheet without any loss.
Photocopiers and printers outside America include buttons for this.
It's a standard feature of photocopiers in the US too.
It can't work perfectly except with the A series paper sizes.
This statement is purely subjective. It is false in general and there's nothing objective about it. I've read thousands of pages of A4 with no problems, and in fact I'd say it's great.
Almost no books are published in A4 format, even in Europe. I think that has a reason.
No one mentioned books, but standard paperback book sizes are actually even more elongated than A4 (but smaller). A4 is used a lot in academia for papers, theses, lecture notes, etc., and that's mainly what I've read in that size.
It's not about the aspect ratio, but the total line length measured in characters. If you pay attention you will realize that most published papers either have two columns or large margins, like the standard LaTeX article layout.
Do you really think I've read thousands of pages without paying attention? There is a lot of material in a single column without overly-wide margins.
This subthread is about aspect ratio. dfadsadsf claimed "A4 proportions are objectively not great for reading (too elongated)".
Seeing that this product is not targeted at the US and might never even make it there, I'm not sure that's relevant. A4 documents will either be cut off or squished into a smaller space to fit all, so the proportions of the screen are also not really relevant when that's the proportions of the document.
They could settle for the max width and height of both to have a single product for all markets.