Symptom
- After selecting the British keyboard layout, US Letter remains the default paper size.
- After you select the A4 paper size, it reverts to US Letter for the next new document.
Note: Since US Letter is the default, this behavior is actually correct. It is often misperceived that changing the paper size for one document changes the default paper size either for an application or for the system.
Solution
The default paper size is initially set to match the preferred language in the International preference pane, not to match the keyboard layout. US Letter is selected for English, and A4 is selected for other languages. After you select your language and keyboard layout, you may change the default paper size. Follow these steps:
1. Open Print Center (/Applications/Utilities/).
2. Choose Print Center > Preferences.
3. Choose the paper size from the Default Paper Size pop-up menu.
The default paper size will be used with any new documents you create. Existing documents will retain their previous paper size until you change and save them on an individual basis.
Note: A localized application may specify its own default size, but the system's default is used when an application is not localized for the selected language or region. This explains why applications may default to different paper sizes.