Understanding Paper Sizes, Ratios and a little history

Understanding Paper Sizes, Ratios and a little history

Within the International Standards Organization's paper size definitions, three series are most commonly used. The A, B and C Series. Within the office environment you may already be familiar with sheet sizes in the A-series, such as A4 and A3. The B and C series are mostly used within the office envelopes.

Paper Sizes have evolved over centuries since and standardized with the invention of the printing press. The original sheet sizes where created by book publishers in England.

With the expansion of the British empire these standards were exported around the world. Sheet sizes naturally developed within new countries, particularly in the United States.

Today, the International Standards Organisation has a well established size for sheets of paper.

A tabular representation of paper sizes can be found here.

The A-sizes are a logical set of paper sizes. The largest size (A0) measures one square meter. The height/width ratio remains constant (1:1.41) for all sizes. This means you get the A1 size by folding an A0 paper in two. Then fold the A1 size in two to get an A2 size paper, and so on.

A-sizes are used to define the finished paper size in commercial printing. A4 and A3 is used for office documents. A6 is used for postcards.

There is a D Series as well but hardly refered to in sheet sizes. The only exception is the DL Size. For paper DL is 99 x 210mm - a third of an A4 size. This is not to be confused with a DL Envelope which is 110mm x 220mm.

A tabular representation of paper sizes ratios along with a pictorial overlay of the paper size proportions can be found here.

For a full history of the development of the International Standards Organisation adoption and variants, you will find an indepth article in here.

A big problem within Australia is the setting of most laser printers and office productivity suites setting for the default paper size of (American) Legal. Sadly, manufacturers could not be bothered to address this issue even though they are well aware of this matter, given we use different power supplies. As a result most office print outs are distorted from what is seen on the screen. This in turn can cause issues when presenting office productivity documents for commercial printing.

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