Re: Standards wrt paper and standards

[Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com]

>I mean, if you would ask the average Joe or Jane Blow if they know what A4
>is, would they know?

Are Joe and Jane connected with printing in any way? I ask because the
average person off the street here, if asked about A4 would come up with a
German car designation before they came up with a paper size.

But most people over here involved with printing have an idea of A4, if
only because the printer paper trays have a setting for it. ;{>}

>Reason for this is that one of the guys in the thread about this mentioned
>the authors for ghostscript used parts of inches to approximate the size
of
>an A4 format, which is, of course, not useful at all.

That's a rather parochial mindset, isn't it? Inches or mm, they both can
describe the exact same size.

>How close is the industry and the general public towards accepting the
>Internation Standards [SI] units and other format standards used widely
over
>the world, with the common exception of the USA?

The measurement units? Industry is very close to accepting, the general
public is not only resistant but actively hostile to. The format standards,
such as A4? For even a large part of the industry the attitude seems to be,
"over my dead body." It's funny, but even in the CAD systems, where it's
common to speak of "A-size drawings" and the measurements are in mm as
often as inches, the paper is *not* A4.

Whole filing systems depend upon 8.5 x 11 inches; ISTM that's not likely to
change until the paper files themselves go away.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
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