Know-How Exchange : Other

It is very important -- locally source your printing and have it A4'd for your European campaigns. Unless you are specifically going to an odd shape -- you will scream Americana. Really for an odd shape print job you should consider a unique size and shape all together.

The implications go beyond being recognisably American – (That’s no bad thing!)

Apart from storage and binding, you also have the implications of digital storage, photocopying and document retrieval.

I used to run sales for EMEA for an intensely patriotic US company which insisted on sticking to American letter and legal standards for everything. The new high volume photocopiers used for all internal management documents and all external client documents were forever breaking down. Just getting a quote out and copies made was problematic and management reports (24 sets of them for the Board!) were a nightmare.

It turned out that the UK copiers were optimised for Euro-Standards and no amount of tweaking was going to make them run to US standards.

With digital publishing, storage and retrieval, most paper issues are less important, but don’t ask your customers and prospects to re-size everything they want to keep.

Steve Alker
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Having been on the receiving end of this (getting A4 documents from the UK), I can tell you that it's annoying. Nothing fits properly in binders, folders, etc. and you can't easily clip them together with 8 1/2 x 11 documents.