Comment by rhplus
3 years ago
8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!
Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.
Deep within your subconscious memories is a series of you unloading A4 from your printer, thinking about where to best store it, finding 20 reams already there, stacking this one on top, and then promptly forgetting the location.
"I don't put things where I think they should go, I put them where I am likely to look for them" - Adam Savage
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A4 is an antimemetic paper size
Periodically I buy things like Post-its because I can't find any--and then the next rare time when I really deep clean my office or attic, I find enough office supplies to open a stationary store.
I went the other way with it. Bought a ream of A4 and I use it for everything. I hope it causes chaos.
The trick is, next time you need it, make note of where you first look for it, and when your acquire more, put the newly acquired paper on the first spot you looked for the old stuff.
Ah, but now I need to figure out where to put the "remember to leave a note" note so I find it in 2026.
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Just buy a printer with two paper trays and reserve one for A4 paper. Problem solved!
Seems pretty heavy handed for something that happens at the cadence of Australian passport renewal (10 years in most cases). I believe I replace my printer at least that often.
Why doesn't renewing it online work? is there still a paper based component to it? I don't think I had that problem last time I renewed mine online.
Sounds like a PC LOAD LETTER issue.
PC LOAD A4, you mean.
In the Philippines, it is even worse. At least four standards (A4, Letter, Legal, and Long Bond), and all of them are necessary for communication with various government agencies such as BIR.
I did not even know anything else than A4 existed, I just learned that now
Oh, come on. Everyone knows about A3 and A5.
For Americans et al. who don't know:
- A3 is (within physical tolerances, anyway) twice the size of A4
- A5 is half the size of A4
- A0 is the biggest size and and has an area of 1 square meter, although it is not a square but instead it has an aspect ratio of 1:sqrt(2) (technically all A-series papers have this aspect ratio because math says it is the aspect ratio that retains itself when halved)
- In practical sense, A5 is the smallest pre-packaged A-series paper that I have personally encountered, although I guess someone would chime that they handled A6 (half of A5) or smaller.
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Sure, I meant the imperial sizes in inches, never heard about that before. I assumed A4 was the global standard.
Why would anyone care if they received the other paper size? The differences are tiny.
Never underestimate the pettiness of a bureaucracy
Asetter us a bit wider it might not fit in a folder properly and when stacked with other A4 forms it won't match, which can be a flying also it probably is processed by a machine where it might not fit. (Say a scan er which extracts the signature to print onto the passport)
Does it really matter? Letter size is close enough to A4 that I doubt anyone but paper nerds would notice
For sending official paperwork to a judge or a visa or something like that, there are a lot of rules. Sending A4 instead of Letter will make them reject your paperwork on the spot.
Someone told me a horror story about a PhD thesis rejected because it has wrong margins (probably something about the margins of the document and additional margins added by the driver). He has to reprint all the copies. Most universities are not so stupid, but if your university is stupid enough, remember to triple check the margins.
In the 80s at UIC, there was famously a woman in the graduate school who checked measurements of all margins and other spacing with a ruler and rejected dissertations which didn’t meet the strict requirements.
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> Sending A4 instead of Letter will make them reject your paperwork on the spot.
This generally happens not because anyone actually cares about the paper size, but because some employee has a target to 'process 5 applications per day, and then you can go home.' If an application is made on the wrong size paper, thats an insta-deny, and the employee just saved themselves an hour!
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Filing systems, automatic paper handling systems built for A4 won't process US legal. Passport forms include machine read sections such as signature, as do tax returns.
It won't fit in binders, envelope, storage boxes or tab folders.
It's asking for trouble, rejection is likely.