Re: Standards wrt paper and standards

Subject: Re: Standards wrt paper and standards
From: Jeroen Ruigrok/asmodai <asmodai -at- wxs -dot- nl>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 10:51:32 +0200


-On [20020423 22:15], Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com (Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- jci -dot- com) wrote:
>
>>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.

*grin*

I would assume printers and people working in, or closely related to, that
industry to have knowledge of it.

>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.

Exact quote from Markus Kuhn:

``I was more concerned when I spotted that ghostscript rounds the A4 default
paper size to the nearest 1/10 inch (resulting in odd paper dimensions being
displayed by acroread), Acroread for Unix having completely broken scaling
A4 support for the first four versions (I filed half a dozen bug reports on
A4 handling alone so far), and so on and so on.''

I didn't communicate it properly first time around, my apologies for the
confusion caused.

>>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.

Why is that?
Of course, I can understand it takes some getting used to, but, for all I
know, the SI units are widely taught and used within the academic community
already.
And standardising would make sense in the long run, since you would
understand how it works across the entire earth. [Yes, I am a dreamer by
heart. :)]

>The format standards, such as A4? For even a large part of the industry the
>attitude seems to be, "over my dead body."

Interesting, especially given the number of global companies/multinationals.
Standardising on this sort of thing would only make sense, at least to me.

>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.

That's even weirder. I can imagine an European to get confused with that.
:)

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

Well, yes, that is always the problem.
But if one does not start somewhere...

>If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.

I love this one. :)

--
Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven / asmodai / Kita no Mono
asmodai -at- [wxs -dot- nl|xmach.org], finger asmodai -at- ninth-circle -dot- org
http://www.softweyr.com/asmodai/ | http://www.[tendra|xmach].org/
To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great
mistake...


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Re: Standards wrt paper and standards: From: Arlen . P . Walker

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