An Introduction to Paper Sizes
Last Updated on June 11, 2020 by Christian Ralph
With A3 printers now more accessible to most users than ever before, it can be quite a struggle navigating away from the standard, A4 format traditionally associated with office printing. We hope this guide will help make distinguishing your SRA3s from your GSMs that little bit easier.
A series
Ranging from the monstrous A0 (841 x1189mm) to the minute A6 (105 x 148mm) the ISO standard A series includes some of the most popular paper sizes in Europe. We’ll take a look at two of the most widely used.
A4
Far and away the most common paper sized used today is A4. At 210 x297mm the A4 page is the industry standard for office document sizes.
A4 paper comes in a range of paper weights ranging from 75gsm² to 300gsm² with a variety of types including index paper, cover paper and text paper each with their own unique properties including thickness, strength and feel.
As well as printing in A4 formats, the majority of modern printers can also print on media of smaller sizes including A5 & A6.
For the majority of day to day printing tasks an A4 sized printer should be sufficient.
A3
The second most used paper size in the average work environment is A3. At 297mm x 420mm, A3 paper is exactly twice the size of its A4 counterpart. Apart from making a bigger visual impact than A4, A3 printers bring with them a host of benefits including faster print engines, larger toner cartridges and higher duty cycles.
Another advantage of A3 printers is their ability to print in other smaller sizes including A4,A5 & A6.
Browse our range of A3 printers here.
SRA3
The SRA range of paper sizes is commonly utilised by commercial printing companies. SRA pages are marginally oversized allowing room for grip, bleed and trim, which are essential in commercial printing equipment.
One of our best-selling A3 printers with SRA3 capability is the Xerox Phaser 7800DN A3 Colour Laser Printer.
C Series
The C series paper is used exclusively for envelopes. The C series range from C1 to C10 and correspond to their respective sizes in the A range (e.g. C4 to A4). The C series size are designed to be marginally bigger than their A series counterpart allowing them to fit inside unfolded. However, a A4 page of paper folded once can fit into a C5 envelope.
To accommodate the traditional tri-folded A4 letter the DL envelope was introduced and has since become one of the most widely used envelope formats.
GSM and Paper Weight Explained
GSM stands for ‘Grams per Square Metre’, a measurement of paper thickness or density directly relating to the quality of the media. The higher the GSM value, the thicker the material is. As the description suggests, it tells you how much a 1 metre x 1 metre square piece of the media would weigh in grams.
Most printers provide an indication of the maximum paper weight it can support, usually thicker media can be catered for via feeding through a multi-purpose tray where available; check with the product brochure or with the Printerland team for exact specifications.
Common Paper Weights….
- 300GSM+: Good quality business card or heavy card media
- 180GSM – 250GSM: Middle market magazine cover
- 130GSM – 170GSM: High quality promotional poster
- 80GSM: Standard issue day to day office paper
- 35GSM – 55GSM: Newspapers
We hope that this guide has provided some valuable insight into the world of paper sizes. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to call us on 0800 840 1992 and one of our expert staff will be happy to help.
