Paper size
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There have been many standard sizes of paper at different times and in different countries.
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International paper sizes
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International standard paper sizes are now used in all countries except the United States, Canada, and some South American countries.
The international standard is ISO 216, which defines amongst others, A4. ISO paper sizes are all based on a single aspect ratio of the square root of two, 1:1.4142. Basing paper upon this ratio was conceived by Georg Lichtenberg in the eighteenth century, made law in Germany in the 1920s, but did not reach its culmination until the prevalence of photocopy machines from the 1960s made having all paper with the same aspect ratio far more convenient in scaling than any other system.
The largest standard size, A0, has an area of 1 m². A1 is formed by cutting a piece of A0 in half, which retains the aspect ratio. This particular measurement system was chosen in order to allow folding of one standard size into another, which cannot be accomplished with traditional paper sizes.
Brochures are made by using material at the next size up i.e. material at A3 is folded to make A4 brochures. Similarly, material at A4 is folded to make A5 brochures.
It also allows scaling without loss of image from one size to another. Thus an A4 page can be enlarged to A3 and retain the exact proportions of the original document. Office photocopiers in countries that use ISO 216 paper often have one tray filled with A4 and another filled with A3. A simple method is usually provided (e.g. one button press) to enlarge A4 to A3 or reduce A3 to A4. Thus an A4 brochure when open is A3 and can be placed on the copier and either printed directly onto the A3 paper or reduced to A4.
The ISO B series is a scaling of the A series; B1 is half way between A0 and A1 in area. The C series, defined in ISO 269, is half way between the A and B series of the same number; for instance, C0 is half way between A0 and B0. This way, C0 is slightly larger than A0, and B0 slightly larger than C0. This was intended to allow one to fit inside an envelope of the other. For instance, a letter written on A4 paper, the standard for this role, fits inside a C4 envelope. A C4 envelope can fit inside a B4 envelope.
The scalability also means that less paper (and hence money) is wasted by printing companies.
The measurements in millimetres are more appropriate for determining the aspect ratio of paper than the less-accurate measurement of book sizes in centimetres. However, there is a tolerance factor that lengths of paper less than 150 mm can have plus-or-minus 1.5 mm and still qualify for the size designation. Lengths from 150 to 600 mm can have plus-or-minus 2 mm, while those over 600 can have plus-or-minus 3 mm.
ISO 216 does not define any sizes larger than A0 and B0, but the German standard DIN 476 puts a factor in front of these. Thus paper designated 2A0 is twice the size of A0, while 4A0 is four times A0.
Although A4 is the standard size in the rest of the world, it doesn't fit in US three-ring binders (and there is a different standard for hole-punched binders to go with the international papers as well). However, the rarer E5 paper is less than a millimetre taller than US Letter size, though it is about five-eighths of an inch narrower. Photocopies from A4 to E5 are simply reduced to 95%, while from E5 to A4 increased to 105%. And notice that, as A4 is the standard size for international firms, their web sites (such as that of ISO itself) are designed to be printed on such paper of greater length. Printing them out without adjustment, on US Letter-size paper, prints the bottom of the page on a second sheet.
| A- | B- | C- | |
|---|---|---|---|
| -0 | 841 × 1189 | 1000 × 1414 | 917 × 1297 |
| -1 | 594 × 841 | 707 × 1000 | 648 × 917 |
| -2 | 420 × 594 | 500 × 707 | 458 × 648 |
| -3 | 297 × 420 | 353 × 500 | 324 × 458 |
| -4 | 210 × 297 | 250 × 353 | 229 × 324 |
| -5 | 148 × 210 | 176 × 250 | 162 × 229 |
| -6 | 105 × 148 | 125 × 176 | 114 × 162 |
| -7 | 74 × 105 | 88 × 125 | 81 × 114 |
| -8 | 52 × 74 | 62 × 88 | 57 × 81 |
| -9 | 37 × 52 | 44 × 62 | 40 × 57 |
| -10 | 26 × 37 | 31 × 44 | 28 × 40 |
| A- | B- | C- | |
|---|---|---|---|
| -0 | 33 × 46¾ | 39¼ × 55¾ | 36 × 51 |
| -1 | 23½ × 33 | 27¾ × 39¼ | 25½ × 36 |
| -2 | 16½ × 23½ | 19¾ × 27¾ | 18 × 25½ |
| -3 | 11¾ × 16½ | 14 × 19¾ | 12¾ × 18 |
| -4 | 8¼ × 11¾ | 9¾ × 14 | 9 × 12¾ |
| -5 | 5¾ × 8¼ | 7 × 9¾ | 6½ × 9 |
| -6 | 4¼ × 5¾ | 5 × 7 | 4½ × 6½ |
| -7 | 3 × 4¼ | 3½ × 5 | 3¼ × 4½ |
| -8 | 2 × 3 | 2½ × 3½ | 2¼ × 3¼ |
| -9 | 1½ × 2 | 1¾ × 2½ | 1½ × 2¼ |
| -10 | 1 × 1½ | 1¼ × 1¾ | 1 × 1½ |
Current U.S. loose paper sizes
Current standard sizes of U.S. paper are a subset of the traditional sizes referred to below. Letter, legal, and ledger/tabloid are by far the most commonly used of these for everyday activities.
There is an additional paper size to which the name "government-letter" was given by the IEEE Printer Working Group: the 8-by-10½ inch paper that is used in America for children's writing and was prescribed by Herbert Hoover when he was Secretary of Commerce to be used for U.S. governmental forms. Apparently this would enable discounts from purchase of paper for schools. As photocopy machines later proliferated, citizens wanted to make photocopies of the forms, but as the machines did not generally have this size paper in their bins, they could not do so, thus Ronald Reagan had the U.S. government switch to letter size. 8" × 10½" is still commonly used in spiral-bound notebooks and the like.
US paper sizes are currently standard in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
See switch costs, network effects and standardization for possible reasons for differing regional adoption rates of the ISO standard sizes. A related phenomenon may be the QWERTY keyboard layout, among other examples.
| Name | Inches | mm | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quarto | 10 × 8 | 254 × 203 | 1.25 |
| Foolscap | 13 × 8 | 330 × 203 | 1.625 |
| Executive | 10½ × 7¼ | 267 × 184 | 1.4483 |
| Government-Letter | 10½ × 8 | 267 × 203 | 1.3125 |
| Letter | 11 × 8½ | 279 × 216 | 1.2941 |
| Legal | 14 × 8½ | 356 × 216 | 1.6471 |
| Ledger, Tabloid | 17 × 11 | 432 × 279 | 1.5455 |
| Post | 19¼ × 15½ | 489 × 394 | 1.2419 |
| Crown | 20 × 15 | 508 × 381 | 1.3333 |
| Large Post | 21 × 16½ | 533 × 419 | 1.2727 |
| Demy | 22½ × 17½ | 572 × 445 | 1.2857 |
| Medium | 23 × 18 | 584 × 457 | 1.2778 |
| Royal | 25 × 20 | 635 × 508 | 1.25 |
| Elephant | 28 × 23 | 711 × 584 | 1.2174 |
| Double Demy | 35 × 23½ | 889 × 597 | 1.4894 |
| Quad Demy | 45 × 35 | 1143 × 889 | 1.2857 |
| STMT | 8½ × 5½ | 216 × 140 | 1.5455 |
| A | 11 × 8½ | 279 × 216 | 1.2941 |
| B | 17 × 11 | 432 × 279 | 1.5455 |
| C | 22 × 17 | 559 × 432 | 1.2941 |
| D | 34 × 22 | 864 × 559 | 1.5455 |
| E | 44 × 34 | 1118 × 864 | 1.2941 |
Current U.S. paper sizes for tablets
The sizes listed above are for paper sold loosely in reams. There are a large number of sizes of tablets of paper, that is, sheets of paper kept from flying around by being bound at one edge, usually by a strip of plastic. Often there is a pad of cardboard at the bottom of the stack. Such a tablet serves as a portable writing surface, and the sheets have lines printed on them, usually in blue, to make writing in a line easier. An older means of binding is to have the sheets stapled to the cardboard along the top of the tablet; there is a line of perforated holes across every page just below the top edge from which any page may be torn off. Lastly, the pad of sheets each weakly stuck with adhesive to the sheet below, trade-marked as "Stick-Em's," serve as a sort of tablet. Their size is 3 inches square.
The significance of taking separate note of these sizes is that their contents are just as likely to be photocopied and enlarged, of course onto loose paper, as are the more standardized international sizes of paper.
"Letter pads" are of course 8½ by 11 inches, but the term "Legal pad" is often used for pads of this size besides those of 8½ by 14 inches. There are "Steno pads" (used by stenographers) of 6 by 9 inches, and pads for pre-school children of twice and four times this size, but which have lines going the long way across the paper: 9 by 12 inches and 12 by 18 inches. For the latter use, there are also pads 10¾ by 13½ inches.
For varied commercial purposes, all sorts of sizes have been recently observed: 4 by 5½ inches; 5 by 8 inches; 5-3/8 by 8-1/4 inches; 6 by 9½ inches; 7¼ by 9½ inches; and 7¾ by 9-7/8 inches.
The only "metric" paper in the shops where this observation was taken are a few Chinese-made "composition books" for children which are 190 mm by 247 mm, a slight modification from the 7¾ by 9¾ inch ones. But the holes in the sheets of any of theses tablets fit American-standard binders.
Japanese paper sizes
The JIS defines two main series of paper sizes. The JIS A-series is identical to the ISO A-series, but with slightly different tolerances. The area of B-series paper is 1.5 times that of the corresponding A-paper, so the length ratio is approximately 1.22 times the length of the corresponding A-series paper. The aspect ratio of the paper is the same as for A-series paper. Both A- and B-series paper is widely available and most photocopiers are loaded with at least A4 and B4 paper.
There are also a number of traditional paper sizes, which are now used mostly only by printers. The most common of these old series are the Shiroko-ban and the Kiku paper sizes.
| B- | Shiroko ban 4x6/ | Kiku | |
|---|---|---|---|
| -0 | 1030 x 1456 | ||
| -1 | 728 x 1030 | ||
| -2 | 515 x 728 | ||
| -3 | 364 x 515 | ||
| -4 | 257 x 364 | 264 x 379 | 227 x 306 |
| -5 | 182 x 257 | 189 x 262 | 151 x 227 |
| -6 | 128 x 182 | 189 x 262 | |
| -7 | 91 x 128 | 127 x 188 | |
| -8 | 64 x 91 | ||
| -9 | 45 x 64 | ||
| -10 | 32 x 45 | ||
| -11 | 22 x 32 | ||
| -12 | 16 x 22 |
Traditional paper sizes
Traditionally, a number of different sizes were defined for large sheets of paper, and paper sizes were defined by the sheet name and the number of times it had been folded. Thus a full sheet of "Royal" paper was 25 × 20 inches, and "Royal Octavo" was this size folded 3 times, so as to make eight sheets, and was thus 10 by 6¼ inches.
Imperial sizes were used in the United Kingdom and its territories. Some of the base sizes were as follows (all in inches):
| Name | Imperial | US | mm | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emperor | 72 × 48 | 1829 × 1219 | 1.5 | |
| Antiquarian | 53 × 31 | 1346 × 787 | 1.7097 | |
| Grand Eagle | 42 × 28¾ | 1067 × 730 | 1.4609 | |
| Colombier | 34½ × 23½ | 876 × 597 | 1.4681 | |
| Atlas | 34 × 26 | 34 × 26 | 864 × 660 | 1.3077 |
| Imperial | 30 × 22 | 30 × 22 | 762 × 559 | 1.3636 |
| Pinched Post | 28½ × 14¾ | 724 × 375 | 1.9322 | |
| Elephant | 28 × 23 | 28 × 23 | 711 × 584 | 1.2174 |
| Princess | 28 × 21½ | 711 × 546 | 1.3023 | |
| Cartridge | 26 × 21 | 660 × 533 | 1.2381 | |
| Royal | 25 × 20 | 25 × 20 | 635 × 508 | 1.25 |
| Sheet and Half Post | 23½ × 19½ | 597 × 495 | 1.2051 | |
| Medium | 23 × 18 | 23 × 18 | 584 × 457 | 1.2778 |
| Demy | 22½ × 17½ | 22½ × 17½ | 572 × 445 | 1.2857 |
| Large Post | 21 × 16½ | 533 × 419 | 1.2727 | |
| 20 × 15½ | 508 × 394 | 1.2903 | ||
| Copy Draught | 20 × 16 | 508 × 406 | 1.25 | |
| Crown | 20 × 15 | 20 × 15 | 508 × 381 | 1.3333 |
| Post | 19¼ × 15½ | 20 × 15 | 489 × 394 | 1.2419 |
| Foolscap | 17 × 13½ | 17 × 13½ | 432 × 343 | 1.2593 |
| Small Foolscap | 16½ × 13¼ | 419 × 337 | 1.2453 | |
| Brief | 16 × 13½ | 406 × 343 | 1.1852 | |
| Pott | 15 × 12½ | 381 × 318 | 1.2 |
The common divisions and their abbreviations include:
| Name(s) | Abbr. | Folds | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Folio | fo/f | 1 | 2 |
| Quarto | 4to | 2 | 4 |
| Sexto or Sixmo | 6to/6mo | 3 | 6 |
| Octavo | 8vo | 3 | 8 |
| Duodecimo or Twelvemo | 12mo | 4 | 12 |
| Sextodecimo or Sixteenmo | 16mo | 4 | 16 |
Foolscap Folio is often referred to simply as 'Folio' or 'Foolscap'. Similarly, 'Quarto' is more correctly 'Copy Draught Quarto'.
Many of these sizes were only used for making books (see bookbinding), and would never have been offered for ordinary stationery purposes.
See also
- Punchhole - Filing holes
External links
- International Standard Paper Sizes (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html) by Markus Kuhn
- Web page on traditional paper sizes used in books, with reference tables (http://www.trussel.com/books/booksize.htm)
- IEEE-ISTO 5101.1-2002 "The Printer Working Group Standard for Media Standardized Names" (PDF) (ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/standards/pwg5101.1.pdf)
- Paper Sizes (http://www.jimspages.com/Paper_Sizes.html)
- Japanese and international paper size (http://home.inter.net/eds/paper/papersize.html)cs:Formát papíru
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