Bahn Train and Train Line Ticket question.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/print-online-bahn-ticketss-in-a4-format

Yes, of course. I think A4 is basically a quarter inch narrower and half inch longer. Hardly a noticeable difference. It will print just time.

It is basically saying: don't shrink it "2 pages on one sheet" to save paper, as the barcode won't be readable.
US inch-based paper is close enough to metric A4.

Either that, or persuade the USA to come out of the dark ages, dump feet, inches, gallons and pounds and adopt the metric system ☺

If history of the US is any example, I don't believe the US will ever change over, certainly not in my life time. In the early 1970s there was an attempt to change gradually to the metric system over a period of 5 years (maybe 10...don't recall exactly) but after a few years, the effort was dropped. The critics (there are always critics) decried the whole effort as a waste, etc, etc.

At that time our "British cousins" were not yet on the metric system.. They ended up changing , the US are different...for all sorts of reasons.

You can also download the DB Navigator app and show the tickets on your smartphone. You'll need to register. If your tickets aren't showing in the app (which they won't be if you weren't logged in when you purchased them) you can go to My Tickets and then click the "+" sign (upper right) to add them with the Order-ID from your purchase and your surname.

adopt the metric system

You've only adopted 2/3 of the "metric" system (what happened to metric time?). Time is the most common measurement made my most people, and yet we are all still in the dark ages of time measurement (24 hr/day, 60 min/hr, 60 sec/min). When the metric system was proposed, it included decimal time, but people didn't like it (it wasn't familiar), so it was dropped. We are just doing for the other 2/3 the same thing you did for time.

Paper sizes are not just about the metric system, but also about convenience: All papers of the A series (A0, A1, A2, ...) have the same aspect ratio (the longer size is square root of two times the shorter size), and each paper size is obtained by cutting the next bigger size in half. You can easily enlarge an A5 paper to A4 without unnecessary white space, or changing the aspect ratio. A0 is defined to be one square metre in area, but that is the only relation to the metric system.

In 2008, I traveled on German Rail using the equivalent of Sparpreis tickets (then called Herbst-Spezial). I was worried about the A4 issue, so I cut down some 11x17 paper to A4 size and used the A4 setting on my printer. I bought a mailing tube and rolled up the tickets so they wouldn't have a fold. Before I used my tickets, I stayed in a Privatzimmer and got the owner to print my tickets out on his home printer and compared them to the copies I brought along. They were similar, but not exactly the same. Then when I saw the conductor scan the ticket with his "Tricoder", I realized that the exact size and proportions of the bar code are immaterial. He held the ticket about 24 inches (61 cm) away from the scanner, and at approx 90° (what 90° in metric? How come angles are not decimalized?), and it scanned OK

I'm sure 8½"x11" is fine. In fact, that's how I printed by Savings Fare tickets two years ago.

Hi,

Yes, the 8.5 x 11 is acceptable...no problems.

When I did the first ticket print out on the DB website and saw it asked for "A4" paper, I had no idea what that was but decided to use the 8.5 x 11 anyway. The DB controller did what he had to upon checking this print out ticket and that was that.

No problems or questions asked at all.