Do you know your paper sizes?

When you need new printed matter, you need to decide which format best suits the purpose and content. There are several different formats and many different sizes to choose from.

To make things easier, we've created a guide that gives you a quick overview of the A, B and C formats. Of course, you can always ask your printer for advice and recommendations if you're in doubt. Here you can also get help choosing the format that makes the best use of the printing sheet and gives you the best price.

The A format

The A format is used worldwide (at least in all countries that use the metric system). So you can almost always be sure that you're speaking the same "language" when it comes to agreeing on the size of the paper across borders.

The A format consists of sizes 0-10. Each time you go up a number, the longest side of the paper is halved - just like if you folded the paper in half. A0, which is the largest size, has an area of 1 m2. The following sizes are an indication of how many times the A0 paper needs to be folded to get there. So A0 needs to be folded once to get the A1 size, four times to get an A4 sheet and so on.

The B format

Like the A format, the B format is also based on the meter system, where B0 is one meter on the shortest side. If we compare to the A-series, B1 is between A0 and A1, B2 between A1 and A2 and so on.

The B format is most often used for special products such as posters, envelopes and passports

The C format

The C format is generally used for envelopes that fit the size of both A and B formats. The C sizes are the geometric mean of the A and B size sheets with the same number. So a C4 envelope will be slightly larger than A4 and slightly smaller than B4.

Specifications (millimeters and width x height)