Book Size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from folio (the largest), to quarto (smaller) and octavo (still smaller). Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the original sheet. For example, a quarto (from Latin quart", ablative form of quartus, fourth) historically was a book printed on a sheet of paper folded twice to produce four leaves (or eight pages), each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly descriptions.
Comparison of some book sizes based on American Library Association (left), and traditional book sizes/formats used in English-speaking countries. Based on the 19"×24" printing paper size. (right)
Comparison of book sizes
Book formats
In the hand press period (up to about 1820) books were manufactured by printing text on both sides of a full sheet of paper and then folding the paper one or more times into a group of leaves or gathering. The binder would sew the gatherings (sometimes also called signatures) through their inner hinges and attached to cords in the spine to form the book block. Before the covers were bound to the book, the block of text pages was sometimes trimmed along the three unbound edges to open the folds of the paper and to produce smooth edges for the book. When the leaves were not trimmed, the reader would have to cut open the leaf edges using a knife.
Books made by printing two pages of text on each side of a sheet of paper, which is then folded once to form two leaves or four pages, are referred to as folios (from Latin, foli", ablative of folium, leaf]). Those made by printing four text pages on each side of a sheet of paper and folding the paper twice to form a gathering containing four leaves or eight pages are called quartos (fourths). Similarly, books made by printing eight pages of text on each side of a sheet, which was then folded three times to form gatherings of eight leaves or sixteen pages each, are called octavos. The size of the resulting pages in these cases depends, of course, on the size of the full sheet used to print them and how much the leaves were trimmed before binding, but where the same size paper is used, folios are the largest, followed by quartos and then octavos.[4]:80–81 The proportion of leaves of quartos tends to be squarer than folios or octavos.
These various production methods are referred to as the format of the book. These terms are often abbreviated, using 4to for quarto, 8vo for octavo, and so on. The octavo format, with eight leaves per gathering, has half the page size of the quarto format before trimming. Smaller formats include the duodecimo (or twelvemo), with twelve leaves per sheet and pages one-third the size of the quarto format, and the sextodecimo (or sixteenmo), with sixteen leaves per sheet, half the size of the octavo format and one quarter the size of the quarto. The vast majority of books were printed in the folio, quarto, octavo or duodecimo formats.
There are many variations in how such books were produced. For example, folios were rarely made by simply binding up a group of two leaf gatherings; instead several printed leaf pairs would be inserted within another, to produce a larger gathering of multiple leaves that would be more convenient for binding. For example, three two-leaf printed sheets might be inserted in a fourth, producing gatherings of eight leaves or sixteen pages each. Bibliographers still refer to such books as folios (and not octavos) because the original full sheets were folded once to produce two leaves, and describe such gatherings as folios in 8s. Similarly, a book printed as an octavo, but bound with gatherings of four leaves each, is called an octavo in 4s.
In determining the format of a book, bibliographers will study the number of leaves in a gathering, their proportion and sizes and also the arrangement of the chain lines and watermarks in the paper.
In order for the pages to come out in the correct order, the printers would have to properly lay out the pages of type in the printing press. For example, to print two leaves in folio containing pages 1 through 4, the printer would print pages 1 and 4 on one side of the sheet and, after that has dried, print pages 2 and 3 on the other side. If a printer was printing a folio in 8s, as described above, he would have to print pages 1 and 16 on one side of a leaf with pages 2 and 15 on the other side of that leaf, etc. The arrangement of the pages of type in the press is referred to as the imposition and there are a number of methods of imposing pages for the various formats, some of which involve cutting the printed pages before binding.
Common formats and sizes
United States
The following table is adapted from the scale of the American Library Association, in which size refers to the dimensions of the cover (trimmed pages will be somewhat smaller, often by about ¼ inch or 5 mm. The words before octavo signify the traditional names for unfolded paper sheet sizes. Other dimensions may exist as well.
Book formats and corresponding sizes Name Abbreviations Leaves Pages Approximate cover size (width × height) inches cm Folio 2º or fo 2 4 12 × 19 30.5 × 48 quarto 4º or 4to 4 8 9½ × 12 24 × 30.5 Imperial octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 8¼ × 11½ 21 × 29 Super octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 7 × 11 18 × 28 Royal octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 6½ × 10 16.5 × 25 Medium octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 6½ × 9¼ 16.5 × 23.5 octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 6 × 9 15 × 23 Crown octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 5⅜ × 8 13.5 × 20 duodecimo or twelvemo 12º or 12mo 12 24 5 × 7⅜ 12.5 × 19 sextodecimo or sixteenmo 16º or 16mo 16 32 4 × 6¾ 10 × 17 octodecimo or eighteenmo 18º or 18mo 18 36 4 × 6½ 10 × 16.5 trigesimo-secundo or thirty-twomo 32º or 32mo 32 64 3½ × 5½ 9 × 14 quadragesimo-octavo or forty-eightmo 48º or 48mo 48 96 2½ × 4 6.5 × 10 sexagesimo-quarto or sixty-fourmo 64º or 64mo 64 128 2 × 3 5 × 7.5
See also
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Book_Size ]
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