I am not a designer. Hence I don’t like to make artisitic decisions. Recently I had to make a document and I started to ask myself, what are the standard margins for the text block. I can just eye them out, but this never fullfills me. Here comes two days of research.
Basically there are two traditional methods: Van de Graaf and Villard de Honnecourt. Both are based on some golden section and paper size relationship. As one might notice, the drawing, while not too complicated, yet complex enough to remove any desire to reproduce it. I want digits.
Thankfully, there are simple formulas to calculate margins for your text block by both canons. And by “simple” I mean very simple. If we define width and height of the paper as \(w\) and \(h\), respectively, we can find our margin like so:
For Van de Graaf:
$$ l=\frac{w}{9},\quad r=\frac{2w}{9},\quad t=\frac{h}{9},\quad b=\frac{2h}{9}. $$Here is a handy table with sizes for some common paper formats:
| Format | Size | Left | Right | Top | Bottom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A3 | 297×420 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| A4 | 210×297 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| A5 | 148.5×210 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Half Letter | 140×216 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Gov. Letter | 203×254 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Letter | 216×279 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Junior Legal | 127×203 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Gov. Legal | 216×330 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Legal | 216×356 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Tabloid | 279×432 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
For Villard de Honnecourt:
$$ l=\frac{w}{12},\quad r=\frac{w}{6},\quad t=\frac{h}{12},\quad b=\frac{h}{6}. $$Here is a handy table with sizes for some common paper formats:
| Format | Size | Left | Right | Top | Bottom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A3 | 297×420 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| A4 | 210×297 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| A5 | 148.5×210 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Half Letter | 140×216 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Gov. Letter | 203×254 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Letter | 216×279 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Junior Legal | 127×203 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Gov. Legal | 216×330 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Legal | 216×356 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
| Tabloid | 279×432 | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## | ##.## |
If your document is single sided and you don’t need uneven margins, simply add left and right together and divide it by two.
Next time you need to choose a margin — chose one of those and your document will look classy.