There are two major standard systems for paper in use around the world: a United States standard, based on traditional paper measurements in inches, and an international standard, which is based on metric measurements. Many printers can take paper in a variety of different sizes.
In our book printing world, we usually express paper dimensions in inches rather than centimetre because it works with both non-standard and standard size books, like 5.5” x 8”, 7” x 10”, 8.5” x 11”. However, since many customers are already familiar with those standard sizes, we hope this chart will serve as a reference point for those deciding the best size for their book.
A series
The most popular series of the ISO standard is the A series. The most widely used paper of this series is the A4 format. All paper sizes of this series have a name that consists of an A followed by a number. The larger that number, the smaller the paper.
B & C Series
Two other ISO paper series exist — B and C. The B series was brought into being to provide a wider range of paper sizes, where as the C series is used only for envelopes. The B paper sizes are a bit larger than their A series counterparts and are based on the geometric mean of two consecutive A series sheets.
A Size Fit for Any Envelope
The consistent aspect ratio of the ISO papers makes it easy to fit larger paper sizes into smaller envelopes. This can be done by simply folding the larger papers in half (crease parallel to the shorter sides) until you reach the desired size. The difference in the number of the page sizes equals the number of times you should fold it. So if you have a C4 or B4 envelope and a sheet of A2 paper, you should fold it in half twice. The same method works for filing larger paper sizes in file folders of a smaller size.
