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Comment by genezeta | Hacker News Reader

There is a secondary series, B, in which the base size, B0, -instead of being defined for its area of 1 square meter as is A0- is defined to be 1 meter wide. A series is then 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc square meters, while B is 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc meters wide.

It's not as common as the A series but it's used occasionally and it offers intermediate sizes between those of the A series.

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B5 is very common in Japanese stationary, in particular those silky-smooth notebooks.

And then you have the C series. Mainly envelopes that are mean between A and B thus fitting the A reasonably inside.

Yes, but that is really rarely used -at least around here-. Most envelopes nowadays have opted for different factors. Usually you fold an A4 in thirds on the longer side and use an 110x220 envelope.

Nearly all letters I get are in C5 envelopes, i.e. A4 folded in half. But Denmark is so electronic that "nearly all" is about one a month.

Folding in thirds isn't worth the bother when I post things so infrequently.

Choosing a large British supermarket, they have C4, C5 and C6 sizes, plus DL (A4 in thirds) which are cheapest: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=envelopes

Same in Switzerland. Almost all letters are A4 folded in half inside a C5 envelope.

> The dimensions of DL [size] are 110 x 220 mm (4⅓" x 8⅔") and as such the DL envelope will hold an A4 sheet of paper folded into 3 equal sections parallel to its shortest sides.

* https://www.papersizes.org/c-envelope-sizes.htm

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmBvP0KOZP0

> A series is then 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc square meters, while B is 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc meters wide.

It’s folded in alternating direction so it doesn’t go down as fast. It’s 1m wide, then 1m long, then 50cm wide, 50cm long, etc.

You're absolutely right. Thanks.

In Poland some school supplies use B series. Like notebooks and coloured paper for a&c.

Similarly in Britain, typical notebooks (especially at school) use the B sizes. I think it's probably common across Europe.

It means you can paste an A5 sheet handed out by the teacher into your B5 notebook, leaving a reasonable margin around it. Or you can fold an A4 sheet in half, and paste that in.

Yes. It's common in most of Europe afaik. B5 is a quite nice size for notebooks.

I think that B width goes 1, √2/2, 1/2, √2/4, 1/4, √2/8

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