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Drawing Paper Sizes Guide

Drawing Paper Sizes Guide
Here at Vistaplan we often have customers wanting to order plan hangers or their respective carrier systems confusing paper sizes, inadvertently ordering drawing hangers that are too large or too small for their requirements. We have therefore made this handy paper size chart to help avoid confusion, based on paper sizes as defined by the ISO 216 standard.
The first thing to remember is that the lower paper denomination, for example A0, the larger the size of paper. As a rough guide, the illustration shows the relationship between the length of the paper being equal to the width of the next paper size up.

ISO 216
The international paper size standard, ISO 216, is based on sheets with the ratio of the sides being 1 : √2 approximately 1:1.4142.

The base size, A0, is 841 mm by 1189mm thus giving an area of one square metre. If a sheet of paper based on the ISO 216 standard is folded in half parallel to its shorter side then the sides of the halves will also have the same ratio of 1:1.4142 and obviously be half the same area.

Folding an A0 sheet in half will produce two sheets of A1 paper, which folded in half will produce four sheets of A2 paper. Folding these sheets of A2 paper in half will produce eight sheets of A3 – and so on: see the diagram at the right.

Paper Weights
The weight of paper is usually expressed in grammes per square metre (gsm) thus an A0 sheet of 80 gsm paper will weigh 80 grammes and the successive sizes of the same paper weight will have weights half that of the size above.

The usefulness of this standard is seen when we note that A4 sheets can be folded in half to make A5 brochures and when an A4 document is enlarged on a photocopier it produces an A3 document – and if reduced it produces an A5 document. Weights are also easy to calculate – when using 80 gms paper each sheet of A4 will weigh 5 grammes – one 16th of 80 grammes – the weight of an A0 sheet of 80 gms paper.

History
It may come as a surprise to learn that the German scientists and philosopher Georg Lichtenberg first suggested paper sizes based on the
1 : √2 ratio as long ago as 1786.

It was another German, Walter Portsmann, who formulated the standardised format of paper sizes, introducing it as DIN 476 in Germany in 1922. This standard spread across Europe before the Second World War and across the whole world after the war. By 1975 so many counties were employing this system that it was established as an ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) standard – the United Kingdom adopted the standard in 1959. Now every country in the world except the United State of America and Canada (who use the American Letter format) employs it.