Office Supplies and A4 Paper

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Number Five on the list…

(5) Office Supplies and A4 Paper. Before moving to South Africa a few weeks back, I had never heard of A4 paper. The dimensions of a piece of A4 paper are 8.27″ by 11.69″ (or 210 mm by 297 mm). Thus, it is 0.23″ narrower and 0.69″ longer than a typical piece of American Letter paper (which measures 8.5″ by 11″). Yeah, you guessed it–just different enough to be a little tedious and annoying. Best of luck if you’ve created a document in Word under your default setting (presumably set to a standard letter size) and you expect it to fit on a piece of South African paper. Also, I went to CNA (an office supply store/bookstore) the other day to buy some post-its and they wanted R40 (about $4) for small, pre-cut pieces of colored paper with a mild self-adhesive on them. No way, Jose! We’re in the midst of a world-wide recession and I’m working as a volunteer!

Addendum: I looked up A4 paper online to see if any other countries use it, and sure enough… it turns out pretty much everyone except for those who live in North America use A4 paper Go figure. I also learned that A4 paper (and all paper in the “A” series, including A1, A2, A3, A5, A6, etc.) has a width-to-height ratio of 1:√2. This is particularly interesting because if you cut a piece of A4 paper in half (perpendicular to the long side), it maintains the 1:√2 ratio…and is thus referred to as two pieces of A5 paper. And, if you double a piece of A4 paper, you would still maintain the 1:√2 ratio and it would be called a piece of A3 paper. Why 1:√2? The basic concept is that when rectangles with a width-to-height ratio of 1:√2 are bisected (perpendicular to the long side), the rectangles thus formed maintain the original width-to-height ratio. Also interesting, but seemingly unrelated, is the fact that when a rectangle (i.e. a piece of paper) is cut in half diagonally, it forms two right triangles. Those right triangles will have angles measuring 90°, 45°, and 45°. And for those of you who loved geometry, you might remember that sin (45°) is equal to 1/√2, which gives us the ratio of 1:√2!