: Letter or A4: which is a more sensible default? I have a document that recipients are expected (or are likely) to print on their own. It is not clear whether the majority of users will be

@Kevin459

If you distribute your document in PDF format, PDF viewers can automatically resize to fit the local paper size when printing, so there's no real problem printing.

Visually I think text looks better on page with larger left/right margins rather than a large top/bottom margin. For this an A4 doc resized to fit letter will look nicer than a letter doc resized to fit A4 (IMHO).

I'm in the UK, so I would use A4 as a default. As mentioned above, A4 is an international standard, Letter is used in US/Canada but not much outside of that.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Welton168

I've found it best to target letter height and A4 width - i.e. the lowest common denominator solution.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Karen819

Unless you have a very strong US-biased group of clients, use A4. A4 is an international standard, while Letter is only used in the US and Canada.

It is also not necessarily true that "someone using an A4 filing system would have no problem fitting the smaller letter sized into the system" as Scott claimed, since Letter is wider (215.9 mm) than A4 (210 mm).

Vote Up Vote Down

@Marchetta832

In my humble opinion it all depends on where you live, In Portugal we don't use Letter format only A4. If you are not sure you should go with the Letter format, same reason as the other 2 answers, letter fits in A4...

All the best.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Murray976

A4 does not fit onto letter. But I'm sure you know that.

In the end, for someone using a letter-sized filing system, A4 presents a problem due to its additional height. Pages have to be folded to fit or legal size filing has to be used.

But.... Someone using an A4 filing system would have no problem fitting the smaller letter sized into the system.

Vote Up Vote Down