"Jifl" == Jonathan Larmour <jifl@eCosCentric.com> writes:
>> IIRC, A4 is 210mm by 297mm and US letter is 8.5in by 11.0in,
>> equivalent to 216mm by 279mm. So US letter is slightly wider,
>> hence less likely to give hbox overflows, but only slightly.
>> Maybe that is a valid reason for preferring US letter.
Jifl> On the other hand, things preformatted as US letter will be
Jifl> far too long for most A4 printers, but A4 things tend not to
Jifl> mind being printed on US letter as quite often it's still
Jifl> within the printer's "hard" margins. So A4 is more usable by
Jifl> both.
That does not sound right. A4 is 297mm high, US letter 279. So if you
format for A4 and print on US letter you will use 18mm (i.e. most) of
the bottom margin, and quite possibly cause problems with footers.
Whereas if you format for US letter and print on A4 you have an extra
18mm blank at the bottom.
Horizontally, US letter is 6mm wider so if you print on A4 you will
overflow slightly into the right hand margin, but about 3/4 of the
margin remains.
So US letter is the safer default, not A4.
Sorry my mistake. I thought I remembered US letter being longer and
therefore got it that way round in my head!