I finally got my hands on Indesign and have started playing with the layout for some future products.
In the design options, I have to chose between the sizes A4 and 'Letter' (which is a US standard size I guess?)
Any advice from experienced 3PP's on which size format to chose for 3PP products (pdfs) and why?
Much obliged! :-)
Letter is US standard-sized, while A4 is standard size pretty much everywhere else. A4 is slightly skinnier and longer than US Letter, so if I were in your shoes, I would design to US Letter, and let the end-user print to scale if needed.
(Or don't worry about printing at all...how many of your customers print out their PDF vs. just use it digitally? :D )
Thanks for the advice. But seeing as Letter is wider than A4 won't the problem exist in reverse for Europeans trying to print a Letter-format pdf? The text and images might be too wide for the paper? (or scale down on paper and be hard to read?)
|
As Liz says, letter (8.5" x 11") is the standard paper size in the U.S. A4 is standard in most of Europe, the Middle East etc.
Pretty much everyone I know of designs on standard letter (8.5" x 11") size, especially if you yourself are in the U.S. Any scaling someone trying to print on A4 will be slight enough that it will not cause any problems - A4 is approximately 8.3" × 11.7"
I've been doing this a long time and have clients all around the world - I've only been asked to design to an A4 sheet a handful of times at the most.
Just go with standard letter and you'll be fine :)
Thanks a lot for the tips! :-)
It's easier to scale up than scale down. If you start at the larger size (A4), you run the risk of it being scaled down to illegibility when you print it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Letter is US based (standard). I recently had some issues with art from artists from other countries. They all use A4 and one guy even used A3 (the guy is from Portugal).
Like others have said, go letter and then adjust down. With raster stuff getting bigger is always the issue.
And if you want to know more, basically "letter" is US government paper instituted under Reagan so things were standard. People adopted it after.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Unless you are writing your book in a non-English European language, I can't imagine any scenario where A4 is the right choice. Letter is standard in America, most segments of the RPG market are markedly dominated by US players, and letter and A4 are close enough you can print one on the other kind of paper without too much pain. And since letter is shorter, if someone buys a bound book, it will still fit on their shelf, even in Europe.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Letter is US based (standard). I recently had some issues with art from artists from other countries. They all use A4 and one guy even used A3 (the guy is from Portugal).
Easy way around that is to tell the artist the dimensions in pixels. Then there is no problems.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you all for your input, letter size it is then ;-)