Transitional Paper Sizes

Information

There are two series that are part of the Transitional paper size formats, the PA Series and the F Series. While the PA Series is still used today, especially PA4 (or L4), in 1975 the PA Series was rejected by the committee of the ISO216 standard when they proposed PA Series to be part of this standard. This was decided by the committee with the reason that the number of standardised paper formats should be kept to a minimum. The height of this series is that of the Canadian P4 (210mm x 280mm) and width of the ISO standard A4 (210mm x 297mm). The PA4 for example is a very good solution as the format of the presentation slides and it is used by many international magazines because it can easily be printed on equipment designed for US Letter or A4 size. When in landscape orientation, the PA4 has a 4:3 aspect ratio and it is actually more of a page format than a paper size. A common paper size used in Southeast Asia is the non-standard F4 which the shorter side is 210mm (the same as the ISO A4) and the longer side is 330mm (the same as the British Foolscap). Foolscap or Folio are some common terms used for the F4 size.