Three New Standards Implemented for Primary and Secondary School Textbook Printing in the Year of the Rabbit

An official with the China Institute of Publishing Science has revealed that the revised new standard for printing primary and secondary school textbooks has been completed, submitted to the Standardization Administration of China for approval, and will be released to the public in the near future. To protect students' eye health, textbooks for non-core subjects such as music and art in primary schools will be reduced in size, changing from the current A4 format to B5.

The old standard has been in use for 8 years

Liu Yuzhu, associate researcher at the National Press and Publication Standardization Technical Committee, explained that the current printing standard for primary and secondary school textbooks took effect in 2001 and has been in use for nearly 8 years. "At that time, many textbooks had lots of pictures, used expensive paper and had oversized pages, and quite a few 'luxury textbooks' appeared, which did not match students' financial capacity, so the standard was mainly formulated from the perspective of saving money." Now, as living standards have risen, people have new requirements for students' textbooks, and the old standard is no longer appropriate.

A4 to B5 for primary school non-core subject textbooks

In recent years, textbooks for non-core subjects such as music and art in primary schools have consistently used the A4 format. Some students reported that reading them was tiring, that they took up too much space on the desk, and, more importantly, that because the books were too large to fit into schoolbags, the textbooks were often crumpled, which was not conducive to their reuse. After the new standard is issued, textbooks for these subjects will be changed to the B5 format. However, given that printing plants' equipment does not yet allow for a large-scale changeover, the 184 mm × 260 mm specification will serve as a transitional format, and the 787 mm × 1092 mm specification will be completely abolished.

Each line in "large-format" textbooks to be reduced by 3 to 5 characters

Under the new standard, middle school textbooks designed in the A4 full-width format will continue to be used. These "large-format" textbooks have relatively large pages; to make reading more comfortable for students and reduce visual fatigue, printing is allowed to reduce the specified type area width by 13 mm to 20 mm, which means the number of characters per line will be reduced by 3 to 5 accordingly. For lower-grade textbooks that are mainly picture-based, as long as their type area dimensions conform to the regulations, there is no limit on the number of lines or characters per page.

(Source: Beijing Daily)

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362144.html