What is "Letter Small" Paper Size?

[Tom Stapleton]

Can someone please explain the difference between Letter and Letter Small
paper formats? (I have noticed that there is also a Legal Small paper
format.) I have been trying to find an answer, but no one seems to be able
to describe the difference.
It must be a printer driver issue, but why? I can't find any difference
in the margins, nor in the printable area. I am using various HP printers,
primarily HP Laserjet 5Si MX (PCL).

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Tom Stapleton
Hoechst Marion Roussel
cThomas....@hmrag.com
(When responding, please remove the beginning c.)

[Michel Gagnon]

I can tell you that on the Mac, the difference resides with margins and is
somewhat printer dependant.

The LetterSmall is typically the standard, and has about 1 cm (3/8 in)
margins all-around. This leaves more memory available to process fonts,
images and the like. Likewise, the LegalSmall has wide margins, and because
the paper is larger, it leaves large margins (2 cm top and bottom; 2 to 4 cm
left and right).

By contrast, the Letter and Legal settings use the entire sheet of paper,
minus the physical margins of the printer, which are only a few millimetres
wide. However, it will use more memory in the printer. If you have many
fonts, pictures, etc., it will either take very long, or the printer will
crash.

Note that the difference was significant with earlier printer like the
Laserwriter II, but can hardly be noticed with more recent ones, unless you
really sollicit them (and then, you can add memory).

Now, I don't know specifically what happens with the HP Laserjet 5Si MX
(PCL).

Michel Gagnon

Tom Stapleton wrote in message ...

[Gary Roberts]

For that matter what's A4 small? I thought A4 was an ISO standard? In OZ we
tend not to use letter size.

Gary Roberts