Paper Sizes

With the announcement by Gillio that they are bringing out an Organiser in 'HBxA5' size, which isn't a totally new size, it has existed for some time but mainly in Japan. I thought it was time to revise and update my paper sizes chart!

I often refer to my chart of Popular Paper and Page Sizes, I've updated it and you will find links to it further down this post. 

It wouldn't be so bad if you used this information every week, it might become second nature, but for most of us it is information we only use once or twice a year. 

So let us start with a picture. 

The three different sizes shown A5, B5 and A4 are common sizes. I've added the dimensions to show their actual sizes.

A4 is twice the area of A5, A5 is twice the area of A6 etc. Similarly B4 is twice the area of B5, B5 is twice the area of B6 etc.

These three sizes are all ISO216 paper sizes, ISO216:2007 specifies three different series of paper sizes, A, B and C. One thing in common is that the ratio of height against width is the square root of two. So if you multiple the width by 1.4142 (the square root of 2) you will magically get the height to within 1 mm. Alternatively multiple the height by 0.7071 and you will get the width of the page.

Because they follow this pattern we can easily scale from one size to another when printing. So for instance if you have a Word file that is set to A4 size to print it on A5 paper you scale the page by 0.7071, or more conveniently 70.7% or 71% if you can't input a decimal number.

Note that the reduction between each size is not 50% even though the smaller size has half the area. The scale factor for reduction is calculated by dividing the longer edge of the smaller size by the longer edge of the larger size (or the shorter edge of the smaller size by the shorter edge of the larger size).

Using that rule we can devise how to go from A4 to B5, so we take 250mm and divide it by 297mm to get 0.841 or just 84% should be close enough. 

What is the significance of B5 size you might ask.... B5 is Deskfax size, whilst Filofax have discontinued this size years ago, it still remains a popular size, although printed inserts for this size are difficult to come across. With the knowledge of the scaling factor of 84% you can take any of the Philofaxy diary inserts intended for A5 size and print them at 84% and you will have Deskfax pages.

All the Philofaxy diary inserts for A5 are in fact sized to A4 this is so if you use the 'Booklet' print facility available on some printers they will be printed the correct size on A4 paper (two pages per side) If you are printing the files directly on to A5 paper you have to scale the print to 71%. 

To help you remember this information I have created an 'aide memoire' which you can either put on your notice board or print out and put in your organiser. 

• Popular Paper and Page Sizes (notice board version) - .docx  or  .pdf
• Popular Paper and Page Sizes A4/A5 version - .docx  or  .pdf

If you have any questions pop them in the comments below.

Note taking in your Filofax

Laurie dedicated her 'Free For All Friday' last week to note taking. 

Should you use a notebook or your planner or another organiser for this is up to you. There is no right and wrong at all. We all have different requirements. 

For me, I sometimes dedicate a notebook to a long term project and pick it up as and when I need to add some notes. But like everyone I will often end up with bits of paper with notes when I'm 'away' from my organiser/planner that need to be added to my planner. 

One example is when I go to my French class on a Monday, I don't take my A5 organiser with me to that class, I have a big A4 folder with class notes and other books etc. I have tended to use an A6 organiser with some simple lined paper in it for notes, I would then transfer the notes to my A5 when I got home. 

Laurie's post on Friday got me thinking about this a bit more, could I improve my note taking arrangements when I didn't have my A5 to hand? Was there a better size I could use instead of A6? 

Obviously I could use another A5, may be one with smaller rings with just some lined paper and a year planner for lesson dates. However, I wanted to consider other sizes as well. 

I decided to look at all of the common sizes to see what options there was. I thought this might benefit anyone else as well. 

Here is a table of my findings, explained in more detail below.

Download a higher resolution version of the table here. 

If you are using an A5 organiser, then as a satellite obviously another A5 will work, but so will Pocket and Mini, they both fit on to the rings without any re-punching or folding of the page. Personal will fit, but the bottom or top inside corner will need trimming or folding to clear the bottom or top ring. If you use Mini, you will be able to fit two Mini pages on to an A5! See this post for details. 

With Personal size as your main size,  Mini will fit the rings but with a small fold or trimming the inside corners to avoid the inner rings

If you are using A6 then again Pocket and Mini will fit without any adjustments being required. 

Or if you use a Pocket then Mini will fit this easily. 

Using larger pages in a smaller organiser sadly leads to having to re-punch and fold the pages, not ideal. I do use a normal A4 page in my A5, but not punched for A4, just plain A4 paper in landscape, punched for A5 and then folded in 'Z fold' to fit the A5 organiser, a slightly different solution though. 

Not included in the table is M2, these pages are similar in size to Mini, but landscape not portrait. They also only have 3 holes punched. M2 will fit A5 and A6 perfectly, one M2 on each set of rings in fact. M2 also fits on to Personal, except M2 is wider than Personal, you might be able to tolerate this for occasional notes. M2 will fit in to Pocket and Mini as well, but it will require to be folded to reduce the width. 

Additionally Deskfax has ring spacing perfectly set for using Personal size pages. 

My own preferred solution:

After putting together this post I dug out my 'stash' of pocket inserts to assemble a set-up to try this out. 

Judging by the old diary inserts that I've kept, I was actively using Pocket size for a number of years. I have quite a few pocket ring organisers, but in the end I settled on this unknown brand one to use. 

It has small 11mm pocket rings, which will be enough for some note paper and a year planner and a pen. It is made from a soft leather and as well as card pockets it does have a full width back pocket and a generous size leather pen loop. 

Pocket in A5 fits perfectly!

Pocket of unknown brand, there's no makers name on it anywhere!

Small rings but they are perfect for my application. 

I'm set to try out my new portable note-taking/note keeping organiser. I will let you know how it works out. 

Have you ever 'mixed' sizes in your Filofax before? What sizes have you used? 

Choosing a size

I hate seeing the words on organiser adverts ‘This size isn’t working for me’ often coupled with ‘I only just got this in the mail last week’ or similar…. If you are in any of the planner sales groups, I’m sure you will have seen something similar any week of the year. 

You will have heard me make this suggestion many many times, so often you can most probably repeat it to yourself before you even read it… 

“Test out the different sizes with just plain cut paper before you invest in any planner/organiser. “

I will admit there is a little more to it than that. For example if we take Personal Size, because it is a very popular size. The range of organiser sizes is one of the broadest available if you include some of the older models. 

The ring sizes varies from as miniature as 11mm up to 30mm and may be some factionally bigger than that even. 

 

At the small ‘Slim’ end of things, you have a very slim organiser minus a pen loop and clasp that will easily slip in to an inside pocket of a gents suit jacket pocket virtually un-noticed.

Contrast that with the larger ring organisers, which you would struggle to ‘slip in to any pocket’ and you have quite a difference. They are more suited to going in to your briefcase more likely these days a backpack or messenger bag. 

The main difference between these extremes is of course how many pages the rings will hold. Part of your testing will have to include how many pages you will be carrying at any one time. However, you also need to take in to account what else you want to carry in your organiser? ‘Everything including the kitchen sink’ !!! Well not quite!

The slimmer organisers tend not to have many pockets, compared to say the Moterm Versa or Gillio Mia Cara that have an ‘outer jacket’ that has a lot of different pockets separate to the organiser section, which thankfully can be used on its own. 

Naturally in between these extremes we have the peak of the Gaussian distribution curve where most of the brands/models have the bulk of their range. These tend to be the happy medium between the slim and the fat ends of the spectrum. If you include the ‘Compact’ sizes they have some of the advantages of normal personal size and slimline size but with slightly bigger rings. 

All in all there will be an organiser for everyone in most page sizes, although some page sizes can be a little bit limited in choice.   

And in case you are interested the Personal Size organisers used in the photograph above are, in order from left to right:

• Filofax 3CL (11mm rings)
• DeVilliers Compact (15mm rings)
• Filofax Kensington (23mm rings)
• Filofax Malden (23mm rings)
• Launer (30mm rings)
• Moterm Versa (30mm rings)

What is your happy size? 

Inventing a New Page Size

It seems there is no limit to people inventing new page sizes for ring bound organisers, first we had 'Personal Wide' which is just an imperial sized B6 size, and more recently 'Pocket Plus' a slightly bigger version of Pocket. 

Common to both of these is they retain the same size and ring spacing that they are derived from, which is about the only sensible thing to be said really. 

Today's challenge should you accept it, is to invent a new page size, it can be in mm or inches I don't mind either. 

However, I will set the ground rule that it must use one of the existing ring sizes/ring spacings.

• A4 - 4 rings at 80mm spacing
• A5 - 25, 30 or 35mm ring size
• A6 - 20, 25 or 30mm ring size
• Personal - 13, 25 or 30mm ring size
• Pocket - 16, 20 or 25mm ring size
• Mini - 11mm ring size

You will see I've ruled out Deskfax size and M2 rings, mainly because the ring mechanisms are not readily available these days. 

That said you could use Deskfax (B5) with a 4 ring A4 mechanism, just!! 

What would you call your new page size? Break all the rules... because everyone else has! 

Philofaxy A5....  what size is that?