US Paper Sizes

report this ad

North America, including the US, Canada and parts of Mexico, is the only area of the first world that doesn't use the ISO 216 standard paper sizes, instead they use Letter, Legal, Executive and Ledger/Tabloid paper sizes and those that have been formalised in ASME Y14.1M - Metric Drawing Sheet Size & Format. US Envelope Sizes are also non ISO 216 and are listed on this page. The following table gives the sizes in millimeters and inches of the Commonly used American paper sizes.

Size Width x Height (mm) Width x Height (in) Aspect Ratio Half Letter 140 x 216 mm 5.5 x 8.5 in 1:1.5455 Letter 216 x 279 mm 8.5 x 11.0 in 1:1.2941 Legal 216 x 356 mm 8.5 x 14.0 in 1:1.6471 Junior Legal 127 x 203 mm 5.0 x 8.0 in 1:1.6000 Ledger / Tabloid 279 x 432 mm 11.0 x 17.0 in 1:1.5455

The following page discusses North American paper weights in detail, as it is useful to know how weight as well as size and stock type affects your choice of paper. The difference between US Letter and Legal Paper sizes and international A4 is discussed here, however it is important to say that Letter is effectively the equivalent to A4 size in the USA.

ANSI Standard Paper Sizes

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) defined a regular series of paper sizes based around the Letter (8.5" x 11") format, with this becoming the A sizes and larger sizes being B,C,D & E. Surprisingly these ANSI standard sizes were defined in 1995 well after the ISO standard sizes. ANSI A sized paper is commonly referred to as Letter and ANSI B as Ledger or Tabloid.

Unlike the ISO standard sizes which have the single aspect ratio of 1:root2, ANSI standard sizes have two aspect ratios 1:1.2941 and 1:1.5455 which means that enlarging and reducing between the sizes is not as easy as with the ISO sizes and leaves wider margins on the enlarged/reduced document.

Size Width x Height (mm) Width x Height (in) Aspect Ratio Closest ISO A 216 x 279 mm 8.5 x 11.0 in 1:1.2941 A4 B 279 x 432 mm 11.0 x 17.0 in 1:1.5455 A3 C 432 x 559 mm 17.0 x 22.0 in 1:1.2941 A2 D 559 x 864 mm 22.0 x 34.0 in 1:1.5455 A1 E 864 x 1118 mm 34.0 x 44.0 in 1:1.2941 A0

B+ (Super B)

B Plus, or Super B as it is sometimes known, has dimensions of 13" x 19" (329mm x 483mm). This size is the ANSI B size with a 1" margin for print bleed all the way round. It is sometimes known as A3+ or Super A3 in countries that use ISO 216 paper sizes. European manufacturers sometimes give this size as 330mm x 482mm.

Architectural Paper Sizes

North America also has a special series of paper sizes defined for architectural purposes, in general these have aspect ratios of 4:3 or 3:2. These aspect ratios are very similar to the aspect ratio used for computer screens.

The following table gives details of the sizes for architectural paper.

Size Width x Height (mm) Width x Height (in) Aspect Ratio Arch A 229 x 305 mm 9.0 x 12.0 in 4:3 Arch B 305 x 457 mm 12.0 x 18.0 in 3:2 Arch C 457 x 610 mm 18.0 x 24.0 in 4:3 Arch D 610 x 914 mm 24.0 x 36.0 in 3:2 Arch E 914 x 1219 mm 36.0 x 48.0 in 4:3 Arch E1 762 x 1067 mm 30.0 x 42.0 in 7:5

Other US Paper Size Standards

Other paper size standards issued by ANSI include:

ANSI INCITS 151-1987 - Bond Papers and Index Bristols - Common Sheet Sizes

ANSI INCITS 96-1983 - Forms, Paper Sizes for Single-Part Continuous Business

US Paper Sizes - Quick Lookup

Select the paper size from the 'Size' selector and the unit from the 'Unit' selector - the dimensions will be shown in the dimensions box.