A4 and US Letter PDF Compatibility?

[papersmithforge]

I read on a thread some folks have difficulty with scaling and other such issues between A4 and US Letter size. I thought as a matter of having more universal access it would be better to make model parts fit within both.

US Letter: 8.5 x 11 inches
A4: ~8.3 X 11.7

The ideal space is the area that both sheets can print within, in this case the height of US letter and the width of A4. I rounded down to 8.25 x 11 inches. I like to leave a half inch margin on all sides for the sake of ensuring all printers can readily print the parts, so the printable area is 7.25 x 10 inches.

I'm working under the assumption this would work on any printer using Adobe Reader and I'm hoping someone here can tell me whether it's true or not. If you're using printers that can handle 8.5 x 11 inches obviously you shouldn't have a problem, as the sheets I use will be that size, the only difference is that the models will have a larger margin on the right side, namely, one of 0.75 inches as opposed to the left margin of 0.5 inches.

If you had an exclusively A4 printer and you set your print preferences to non-center and no scaling, would your printer successfully print the parts or would it give you a paper size error and stop your print altogether? Keeping in mind your sheet would be oriented using the top left corner as the guide. Thanks for your input.

[billy.leliveld]

I think you have figured it out already, most of the designers use the 8X10 inch frame, I'm in Europe, using the A4 , but I never had a problem printing designs that are kept within that boundery..

[mbauer]

I've been using 7.5"x10" and this seems to work as well.

My printer does A4 printing, the 7.5 seems to work fine when doing test prints of PDFs.

Is the 7.25" width better for some reason?

Best regards,
Mike Bauer

[Zakopious]

I once received an email for designers from Fiddlers Green, dated Fri, 1 Mar 2002.
It recommended using 7.56 inches wide and 10.5 inches high for the overall size of the drawing .
I do not know if this is still the current recommendation.

[Zakopious]

The Fiddlers Green recommendation is current.

See:
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/other/F...t-comments.php

[Leif Ohlsson]

I have done the same calculations for mm, and arrived at 210 x 279 mm virtual paper size. Virtual, since nobody would use that size of paper. You would either use A4 which is 210 x 297, or Letter which is 216 x 279. But anything made to print on that size of paper would fit into both A4 and Letter size papers. I call this virtual paper size L4 (smallest common denominator of Letter & A4).

The size of the drawing is another matter. That depends on how large margins different types of printers will require, given that they are fed with this virtual paper size. If I format my virtual universal paper size for my typical inkjet printer, the printable area comes out as 203 x 272mm. Margins thus are 3.5mm all around. Formatted for a typical laser printer, the printable area would be smaller, and also not centered.

The Fiddler's green recommendation of 7.56 x 10.5 in. comes out as 192 x 266mm, meaning that margins for our virtual paper size are 9mm each side, and 6.5mm top & bottom, which seems a strange choice. For laser printers the top & bottom margins should be larger. This is probably a recommendation for US Letter size paper printed also on laser writers.

The 8 x 10in printing size translates into 203 x 254mm, which means margins of 3.5mm on each side, and 7.5mm top & bottom. This probably means you can print on all inkjet writers on both A4 and Letter.

Now, all these various recommendations are due, once again, to the double fact of:

1. Accomodating to a "universal" common virtual paper size of 210 x 279mm, allowing printing on both A4 and US Letter.

2. Accomodating to the varying demands for margins in various printers. You have to decide what kind of printers you definitely want to include.

I have settled on the garden variety of inkjet printers and 3.5mm margins all around. Reason is you don't want to print your paper model on a laser printer for a variety of reasons, including quality of the print, and difficulties with white glue.

Translated into inches, the printable are (drawing) then is 203 x 272 mm, or 8 x 10.7". Anything smaller than that will accomodate also printers which require larger margins. 8 x 10" (203 x 254mm) seems a good compromise if your goal is to enable printing also on all inkjet printers. For including most or all laser writers as well, 7.4 x 10" (188 x 254mm) is probably safer, since this would give 11mm margins on both sides and a total of 25mm for top& bottom.

Any points of view on this?

Leif

PS. In case this comes out as if I know everything about this subject, let me tell you that I'm very grateful that this query came up. It made me discover that I have indeed defined the "universal" virtual paper size "L4" I am ranting about above wrongly in a rescaling & recolouring project I am finishing right now. I will have to go back and do some adjusting. Tedious, but absolutely necessary. So thanks!

[Leif Ohlsson]

Just had a look at the Fiddler's Green's recommendations in original. A bit furhter down in the text it says that (my emphasis):

•All pages are 7.56 width x10.5 long and 200dpi

•Parts are placed just a tad short of the side margins and 1/2 from the height margins.

They thus calculate with a virtual page size of 192 x 267mm. The printable area would be (depending on the interpretation of "a tad") something like7.4 x 9.5 in (188 x 241mm). This seems a bit too much, if you goal is simply to accomodate printing on most kind of printers and both Letter & A4. The 11mm margins each side are appropriate, but the 38mm total margins top & bottom together seems a bit generous.

Anyone not designing specifically for Fiddler's Green would probably be better off with the 7.4 x 10" format, or 8 x 10". See above.

[Rubenandres77]

Thanks for bringing this issue to discussion.

It is a bit of a problem when standards do not meet reality.

Here in Colombia the official standard that was adopted years ago is A4.
But.... you know what? In real life we still use North American Letter size.

Meaning official doesn't equal real life so much.

I understand there is only a handful of countries that still use Letter.
I live in one of those countries, and getting pre-cut A4 paper is really difficult. Either I have to buy bigger paper and cut it down, or shrink the scale to fit.

Some designers don't think about this issues when they prepare the kits, and is understandable, since they go for the bigger audience.

But is is very nice when there are designers that think about the problems of the minority, and I'm really thankful when I see a kit has enough empty spaces in the borders so that I can print in Letter.

When I come across an A4 kit that has crowded pages, with all parts going from border to border, I find it very hard to print in Letter, and have to use another solution: print on A3... Or be happy with a slight reduction of the model printing in letter.

Printing on A3 solves all my problems, and I don't have to care about page size or the borders of the page. Don't even have to fit the print size.

Buuuut..... I don't have an A3 printer, I have to go to a copy shop. And they use laser prints. I love the finish of the laser print (except when it cracks at the folds) but that's another topic.

Now, actually I recall they don't use A3 (we don't have "A" papers here) they use "Double Letter" (or "Tabloid"). In any case fitting one A4 page in a tabloid page resolves all my printing problems.


I support the use of enough space on the borders so that the kit can be printed in both sizes without problems. As Leif noted above, is a bit of a work for the designer (I'm going through the same issue fitting some pages of a kit for a kit that will be released soon) but I think the end result is really worth the effort. The user will appreciate it. And you save yourself a lot of questions later from the users ("Will you make it available in letter?" "can someone help me to print in in letter" etc...)
(And, in my own personal aesthetic and totally arbitrary opinion, this forces the designer to have a nicer presentation without overcrowded pages presenting the kit in a cleaner way)

[John Wagenseil]

If you live in US print A4 full size on sheets of legal paper or card stock which is 8 1/2 by 14.

[Lex]

I for one am perfectly satisfied to sacrifice a little bit of scale accuracy just to build a model, if I have to pring on A4 a model intended for letter paper... Or it's just me, not being rigorous enough about scales