A4 Card Stock in the US?

Peter Walker

New Member
Anyone know where I might be able to find A4 Card Stock in the US? All of the places I have gone locally only have Letter size Card Stock.
 

cchambers47201

New Member
i am curious myself. so far i have just used [shrink to fit] option when using acrobat reader, and hoping it will scale properly. so far i have not had problems. i have seen packs for sale on several auction sites, but i haven't broken down and purchased any yet. i have also used shrink to fit and full page settings in picasa from google when printing images, and that has worked on all but one i have worked with. note, i am a newbie here, and there could be a much simpler solution, but the fix i have found has worked so far.
 
This solution will be simple enough if you don't care about the scale which will be slightly off.
I know Peter has manifested interest in some war40k models were the scale is important
 

Lighter

New Member
Finding A4 cardstock in the US of A might become a hobby itself. Several suggestions;

1. Try printing a page or two with your printer set to low quality. In the Adobe Reader print dialogue make sure to check off "actual size" under the size options. The preview box will show you potential problems. Print those pages and see what, if anything, is going to be a problem.

2. See if you can find legal sized cardstock. Difficult, but a lot easier than A4. On line at Office Depot and Amazon. Probably others. This a likely the easiest solution if the test print shows problems.

3. Bristol Board is easy to find. I looked in my grocery's "art" section this morning and they did have a few pads. You will have to cut the width for your printer unless you have an oversize. It's good modeling material.

4. Rescale the project. Use your printer's size dialogue, NOT Adobe print dialogue to do this scaling. (Note: I use Canon and am just assuming other brands have scaling capacity.)

5. (Best, but least likely) IF you are already fluent in Adobe ILLUSTRATOR (not paint) or in Corel Draw you can import the PDF page by page and rearrange things onto letter sized sheets. I do this so that I can use a couple different weights of card/paper and so that I can run multiples of parts I'm anticipating screwing up. But instruction in that is beyond what I think I can do on an internet forum. Plus using the "new" files for anything other than your own build is not copy write friendly!
 

Kiyoshi

New Member
Reading all this, I think I should consider myself lucky to live in Germany, where A4 is the standard xD But, on a more serious note, I think it is insane that there isn't one standardized worldwide paper size
 
there is one, it is the A standard from A0 to A5 and beyond...
It is just that the USA don't use it.
To be fair the paper size standard really make sense if you use the SI system as it starts off with a 1m2 (or as close as possible) sheet in a proportion such as if you cut it in half you keep the same proportion.
 

Vince

Member
But seriously, have you asked the places like Office Depot, Fast Signs, Kinkos, or whoever if they could special order it for you?
 
Z

Zathros

Reading all this, I think I should consider myself lucky to live in Germany, where A4 is the standard xD But, on a more serious note, I think it is insane that there isn't one standardized worldwide paper size

Countries do this stuff to protect their local economies. Let's not talk what's better about other countries to do, as though this should be taken with a grain of salt, sometimes it sets off arguments. SO, no more of that. I will unapprove any posts that make such references by anyone.




There is no need to worry about this when making paper models, much has been written on this subject. Proper searches will yield desired results. With today's technologies, one standard size is not necessary, just knowing how to use software to manipulate your printer to do what it needs to do will suffice. Designers offering the options in their offerings would help, but you can still do this a number of ways.

The easiest way is to print the A4 on Legal size cardstock and you will get the model without changing scale. Don't change the settings on your printer, just load it with the Legal Size cardstock, and keep the settings for A4. :)
 

micahrogers

Moderator "Where am I, and how did I get here?"
Staff member
Moderator



The easiest way is to print the A4 on Legal size cardstock and you will get the model without changing scale. Don't change the settings on your printer, just load it with the Legal Size cardstock, and keep the settings for A4. :)


I have tried this and my printer fore shortens te images just slightly to make them fit :-( HP Photosmart printer.
 
Z

Zathros

If your printer is set to print A4, and it's cutting the picture some, make sure you don't have "Shrink to Fit". You could have a bad printer but it sounds like a settings issue. It should not affect the out put by putting a Legal Size paper in there. I don't believe there's anything to sense the paper size. If so, then try select paper by .pdf size, and run the legal card stock. I have not had this issue so I don't know. I run Epson printers.:confused:
 
that depends on the model, the first thing though is to make sure that your printer will take the heavier paper.
160g is a good all round choice but if you are making models which will be manipulated (like for a game) heavier is better. In addition if you have pasted on details thicker is nicer.
Finally the larger the parts (so usually the larger the model) the heavier the paper should be so the model doesn't collapse on itself.
I would say both are good choices and you should try with both and decide which one you best like to manipulate.
I personnaly use 160 and 250 but the 250 can't be printed from my home so I need to print it at work
 

marcusore

New Member
ım using a hp plotter(90 cm) it accepts many kind of paper. the machine is cheap ı bought it at a 100$ second hand.
 
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