Application
Before the adoption of ISO 216, many different paper formats were used internationally. These formats did not fit into a coherent system and were defined in terms of non-metric units.
The ISO 216 formats are organized around the ratio ; two sheets next to each other together have the same ratio, sideways. In scaled photocopying, for example, two A4 sheets reduced to A5 size fit exactly onto one A4 sheet, and an A4 sheet in magnified size onto an A3 sheet, in each case there is neither waste nor want.
The principal countries not generally using the ISO paper sizes are the United States, Canada and Venezuela, which use the Letter, Legal and Executive system. Although they have also officially adopted the ISO 216 paper format, Colombia, Mexico, The Philippines and Chile also use mostly U.S. paper sizes in ordinary usage.
Rectangular sheets of paper with the ratio are popular in paper folding, where they are sometimes called "A4 rectangles" or "silver rectangles". However, in other contexts, the term "silver rectangle" can also refer to a rectangle in the proportion, known as the silver ratio.
Read more about this topic: ISO 216
Famous quotes containing the word application:
“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”
—Thomas Jefferson (17431826)
“If you would be a favourite of your king, address yourself to his weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very successful.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
—Samuel Johnson (17091784)