For those of you in the United States and Canada, what large-format printing paper sizes do you have access to? There was a request for FreeSewing to add support for the 24" x 36" paper size. I was wondering if there might be different paper sizes we might want to add instead of or in addition to that one?
(And, for US/Canada folks who have places that print A0 patterns, do they actually print those patterns onto paper that is exactly 33.1" × 46.8", A0 sized paper? Or, do they instead print the AO pages onto 36" x 48", ARCH E sized paper?)
I don’t know about the paper sizes, I am near Ottawa Ontario, Canada. I just used Gillmour Productions to have A0 sizes printed out. They did say they could print on ARChe or A0. Hope that helps. They are the most affordable option, but they have buisness hours only for pickup. Or pricey shipping.
I’ve never head of anyone having trouble printing in A0, nor have I seen any business advertising 24x36”. On the other hand, I almost always print at home so I’m probably not the best informed :-).
What might be a lot more useful to consider would be to emulate many indie patternmakers and provide a format compatible with both A4 and US letter. A bit narrower than US letter, a bit shorter than A4, and useable no matter where you are without hair ripping
Do you mean in general, @unagi , or specifically for FreeSewing?
Since our patterns are custom-generated for a particular user, I think the current approach of letting the user choose their own paper size makes sense.
I mean in general. Although I can’t believe I’d be the only one who’d be faced with my current situation, forced to switch printing formats? My impression is that freesewing is pretty international, as an audience at least. For us it’s a lot more practical to have a single format that works on all home printers at hand without having to be re-generated from scratch with every move or even travel. Look around, few small patternmakers go through that rigamarole any more, it’s more straightforward for both parties to use a single hybrid.
Of course providing all kinds of arcane formats is a software maintenance headache. But from a strictly user-interface point of view, such an unusually abundant array of options screams dev masturbation rather than convenience, and just puts off a normal user who can’t find the standards easily.
My understanding is the majority of the world outside North America uses the ISO 216 standard for paper sizes (which includes the A series), so home printers are typically A4 and copy shops print A0-A4, typically.
In North America, the standard sizes are governed by the ANSI standard, although more places are starting to incorporate ISO 216, to make international cooperation easier.
If you’re using multiple printers, maybe generate 2 versions of the pattern in A4 and Letter and put the paper size in the file name along with the date for easy reference.