alt Hacker NewsAs an American I have done this with 8.5 x 11 "letter" paper. I wonder if there's some way one can take advantage of the special properties of A[n] paper.
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As a long time European I never thought I’d come to see the sense of American ways, but having lived here now for a couple of years, it actually is easier for it to just be straight up 8.5 x 11 rather that a ratio that includes a square root.
A[n] sizes are useful when enlarging or shrinking documents. Enlarge or shrink by muliples of sqrt(2) and there's always a fitting paper size available. Or you can put two A5s together on an A4, or two A4s on an A3.
> I wonder if there's some way one can take advantage of the special properties of A[n] paper.
Not as a consumer. As a paper producer, you take advantage of it by cutting large sheets of paper in half to produce smaller sheets. Since you never sell any sizes that aren't clean multiples of each other like this, you've minimized the amount of paper you waste. That's the "advantage".
This was once the standard way of making paper; I don't know if it still is.
1000% yes! An 8.5x11" paper is effectively a 12" ruler accurate to 2 decimal places.
Fold an 8.5" into a square (right triangle) and the long edge is exactly 12.02"
Fold that in half and you can measure 6.01", and 3.005" (exactly). You get 1.5" for free, and can fairly accurately get exactly 1" by rolling the other 3" side into thirds.
If you want to get an exact 1", you can technically get there via 11"-8.5"-1.5", and that gives you the full imperial (fractional) measurement basis, all from folding a (presumably accurate) 8.5x11" piece of paper.