A question was during the Skype Round-Table/Meet Up on Sunday.
Where did Personal Size come from?
The page size as you will all know is 95mm by 171mm, this translates in inches to. 3.75 by 6.75
We have to remember that the size originated in the early 1900's in the USA, so it wouldn't have been measured in metric millimetres back then!
I started to think that may be the original Lefax pages from the 1900's where a slightly different size, but as you will see, this original 1928-1929 calendar page is exactly 95x171 mm in size.
Normally paper sizes tend to be related to each other rather than existing on their own. I have been trying to find what size Personal Size is related too.
Here is a table of all the common US sizes and I've included the Filofax Personal size and ISO A4 and A5 for comparison.
I have studied the sizes and not found any obvious relationship between Filofax Personal Size and the common US paper sizes.
Looking at how Personal Size relates to ISO A4 size shown below in blue, you can fit three Personal Size pages on the one sheet (green, orange and red) This as you can see leaves you with two waste areas at the side and the top, but when printing the thin strip on the right is in fact the bottom of the page so that will be ok for the paper feed on most printers.
Great article;)
ReplyDeleteWere they originally designed for military? If so, could the sizing relate to that? Pockets or bags?
ReplyDeleteYes the military and clergy were big users in the early days. Lefax also made lots of reference guides for engineers that they sold on a subscription basis.
DeleteThe government letter Vs letter size it's weird. Must have made procurement fun.
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing to have pages from that long ago.
ReplyDeleteAt an out of left field guess, it was the size that could comfortably be placed in an outside pocket of a suit jacket?
ReplyDeleteSteve, you are a treasure trove on these matters!. I asked a similar question in a previous "FFA" posting and this has added more details to the answers provided.
ReplyDeleteThese 'nuggets' of information don't improve how we plan at all. They are more a curiosity. But sometimes discovering these things leads to suggested improvements.
DeleteFor example, who ever 'invented' Personal Wide as a format/size didn't realise that their new size is so close to ISO B6 that they should have adopted that size rather than their own new size. B6 is only 4mm wider!
And of course because it is directly related to the other ISO sizes (A4/A5/A6 etc) you can easily scale templates to B6 size.
Whilst not a paper size, perse, 6.75” x 3.75” is commensurate with the size of a US #7 envelope. A stack or number thereof would fit well within a US #7-3/4 or “Monarch” size envelope.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good point. Given that Lefax were posting lots of inserts to different people, then using an existing envelop size makes a lot of sense.
DeleteA very good point RE: Metric A/B/C paper sizes, however it would not be until 1969 that the Metrification Board would be created, and then not until 1973 when the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community that metric standards would be adopted. As such it would be most unlikely that Lefax and or it’s subsidiaries would have adopted such a standard…
DeleteIndeed, it seems odd to me that the Personal paper format finds itself sharing properties with an American standard; Imperial and US paper sizes being fundamentally different sizes and formats.
LEFAX was an American Company started in about 1910 by JC Parker in Philadelphia, hence why I concentrated the comparisons on US paper sizes, although I later branched out my search to other countries!
DeleteThank you for the correction - I was erroneously attributing the format to Letts of London in my mind.
DeletePersonal doesn't relate to US paper sizes. The closest thing we have is Franklin Planner compact size, 4.25 x 6.75. You can use letter size paper, cut the page in half vertically, then trim it down from 11.0 to 6.75.
ReplyDeleteFranklin Planner didn't enter the scene until much latter than LEFAX/Filofax about 1984 if Wikipedia can be believed!
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ReplyDeleteA July 1914 Lefax monthly news sheet discussed the size, and stated that the Lefax answer was "adopting the engineering pocket-book size which is as good as any other".
Thank you Max, I found your comment in my post in 2014!
Deletehttps://philofaxy.blogspot.com/2014/04/lefax-radio-log.html
Great post, Steve!
ReplyDeleteI have wondered before if it might also be related to a personal size bible?
Just had a quick search & Amazon brought up 'ESV Study Bible, Personal Size' & the dimensions are very similar to my Kensington - 20.07 x 13.72 x 5.08 cm.