7 ms·

I always forget the US doesn't use A4 etc. (or do you?)

by mcapodici 7d ago

ajmurmann 7d ago
No, "letter" is the standard
- ZeWaka 7d ago
  Or "legal".
  - stronglikedan 7d ago
    legal is a standard, but not the standard. letter is the standard
    - actionfromafar 7d ago
      And for writing a letter, ed is the standard editor.
SllX 7d ago
Like as a standard? No. But I can go to a stationery shop and buy an A4 notebook.
Modified3019 7d ago
We (normal citizens, businesses, government) mostly use “Letter” size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) which is slightly shorter than A4 Apparently the reagan admin is responsible for making this our official government document size, and no one knows exactly why this size was chosen.
- 13hours 7d ago
  Like most of your standards. No-one knows why, but it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else"
  - lukas099 7d ago
    > it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else Or laugh at ourselves about it, which is what we normally do.
  - cubefox 7d ago
    It was just chosen earlier.
  - MBCook 7d ago
    At a certain point things get so engrained the cost to switch would be huge and the benefits don’t (seem to) outweigh it. I think switching to metric would make far more sense than this.
    - XorNot 7d ago
      I don't know in terms of saved paper because the printer has somehow switched to Letter again I think an argument could be made...
  - spiderice 7d ago
    I'm sorry our paper size offends you. Had we have known it would cause such an inferiority complex we never would have done it.
  - janderson215 7d ago
    Here here! I will walk 500 km for this.
- SllX 7d ago
  That Wikipedia article was lacking citations so I dug some up with ChatGPT: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GPO-CPUB-101spub9.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GP... On page 52 (57 of the PDF), there’s a letter dated December 18th 1978 (Carter administration, not Reagan) from the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing adopting 8.5”x11”, effective January 1st 1980 so departments & agencies could use up their 8.5”x10.5” stock. I also found this article from Time from January 15th 1979 that this was actually slightly cheaper despite using more paper: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C919992%2C00.html https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2... The government adopted 8.5”x10.5” to save money back in 1921 vs what was already the industry standard of 8.5”x11”, but this ended up backfiring and a General Services Administration report in 1972 recommended switching to 8.5”x11” would reduce by 5% the amount of times a secretary would need a second page. The Joint Committee of Printing estimated this change would save several million dollars. > On hearing the news, one straight-faced bureaucrat in the Government Printing Office said of his colleagues' reaction to the news: "Some people think that this issue has been inadequately studied." Apparently the American Forest & Paper Association is under the impression that it was the Reagan administration’s proclamation: > Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper. https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandpa.org/paper.aspx?id=511 https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandp...
  - hbarka 7d ago
    I should have shared this YouTube short: “The most beautiful invention of all time” https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc
josephg 7d ago
How can you forget? Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. (Even when your computer was set to use Australian localisations.) If you didn’t change the setting, you couldn’t print. The printer would complain that it was out of paper, because it didn’t have a tray with the requested us letter paper in it. It was one of those things you always had to check. I don’t think I saw a “us letter” sized piece of paper until I was an adult.
- Xirdus 7d ago
  Must be an Anglosphere thing. Every non-English computer and office software I've ever used correctly defaulted to A4.
  - physicsguy 7d ago
    Na, was normal in the UK to have A4 too
    - socksy 6d ago
      I think you misread, the fact that the UK is in the Anglosphere strengthens the GP's point
      - physicsguy 6d ago
        > Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. I'm not sure how; the UK is an Anglosphere country that uses A4 and desktop machines as far back as I can remember (mid 90s) also correctly defaulted to A4 when printing. I suspect it's more likely to be that there's been English (UK) and English (US) options in OS's for a long time and Aus got defaulted to English (US) rather than English (UK) which carried some settings that weren't correct by default.
  - julianz 7d ago
    PC LOAD LETTER

I always forget the US doesn't use A4 etc. (or do you?)

ajmurmann 7d ago

No, "letter" is the standard

ZeWaka 7d ago
Or "legal".
- stronglikedan 7d ago
  legal is a standard, but not the standard. letter is the standard
  - actionfromafar 7d ago
    And for writing a letter, ed is the standard editor.

SllX 7d ago

Like as a standard? No. But I can go to a stationery shop and buy an A4 notebook.

Modified3019 7d ago

We (normal citizens, businesses, government) mostly use “Letter” size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size) which is slightly shorter than A4 Apparently the reagan admin is responsible for making this our official government document size, and no one knows exactly why this size was chosen.

13hours 7d ago
Like most of your standards. No-one knows why, but it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else"
- lukas099 7d ago
  > it's obviously advantageous to defend it religiously as "better than everyone else Or laugh at ourselves about it, which is what we normally do.
- cubefox 7d ago
  It was just chosen earlier.
- MBCook 7d ago
  At a certain point things get so engrained the cost to switch would be huge and the benefits don’t (seem to) outweigh it. I think switching to metric would make far more sense than this.
  - XorNot 7d ago
    I don't know in terms of saved paper because the printer has somehow switched to Letter again I think an argument could be made...
- spiderice 7d ago
  I'm sorry our paper size offends you. Had we have known it would cause such an inferiority complex we never would have done it.
- janderson215 7d ago
  Here here! I will walk 500 km for this.
SllX 7d ago
That Wikipedia article was lacking citations so I dug some up with ChatGPT: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GPO-CPUB-101spub9.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CPUB-101spub9/pdf/GP... On page 52 (57 of the PDF), there’s a letter dated December 18th 1978 (Carter administration, not Reagan) from the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing adopting 8.5”x11”, effective January 1st 1980 so departments & agencies could use up their 8.5”x10.5” stock. I also found this article from Time from January 15th 1979 that this was actually slightly cheaper despite using more paper: https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C919992%2C00.html https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2... The government adopted 8.5”x10.5” to save money back in 1921 vs what was already the industry standard of 8.5”x11”, but this ended up backfiring and a General Services Administration report in 1972 recommended switching to 8.5”x11” would reduce by 5% the amount of times a secretary would need a second page. The Joint Committee of Printing estimated this change would save several million dollars. > On hearing the news, one straight-faced bureaucrat in the Government Printing Office said of his colleagues' reaction to the news: "Some people think that this issue has been inadequately studied." Apparently the American Forest & Paper Association is under the impression that it was the Reagan administration’s proclamation: > Oddly enough, the United States used two different sizes - the 8" x 10.5" and the 8.5" x 11". Separate committees came up with separate standards, the 8" x 10.5" for the government and the 8.5" x 11" for the rest of us. Once these committees found out about each other a couple years later, they agreed to disagree until the early 1980's when Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper. https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandpa.org/paper.aspx?id=511 https://web.archive.org/web/20120220192919/http://www.afandp...
- hbarka 7d ago
  I should have shared this YouTube short: “The most beautiful invention of all time” https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc https://youtube.com/shorts/KW_bvB33kBc

josephg 7d ago

How can you forget? Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. (Even when your computer was set to use Australian localisations.) If you didn’t change the setting, you couldn’t print. The printer would complain that it was out of paper, because it didn’t have a tray with the requested us letter paper in it. It was one of those things you always had to check. I don’t think I saw a “us letter” sized piece of paper until I was an adult.

Xirdus 7d ago
Must be an Anglosphere thing. Every non-English computer and office software I've ever used correctly defaulted to A4.
- physicsguy 7d ago
  Na, was normal in the UK to have A4 too
  - socksy 6d ago
    I think you misread, the fact that the UK is in the Anglosphere strengthens the GP's point
    - physicsguy 6d ago
      > Growing up in Australia, every computer I’ve ever owned has defaulted to “US Letter” as the paper size. I'm not sure how; the UK is an Anglosphere country that uses A4 and desktop machines as far back as I can remember (mid 90s) also correctly defaulted to A4 when printing. I suspect it's more likely to be that there's been English (UK) and English (US) options in OS's for a long time and Aus got defaulted to English (US) rather than English (UK) which carried some settings that weren't correct by default.
- julianz 7d ago
  PC LOAD LETTER