Most clients are familiar with popular paper sizes like A4 and A5, but as we regularly get asked about other paper sizes and print terms so we thought it would be useful to publish them online.

Paper Sizes
A0 (84.1cm x 118.9cm)
A1 (59.4cm x 84.1cm)
A2 (42cm x 59.4cm)
A3 (29.7cm x 42cm) Popular poster size
A4 (21cm x 29.7cm) Standard letter size and most popular brochure size
A5 (14.8cm x 21cm) Common leaflet/flyer size
A6 (10.5cm x 14.8cm) Common postcard size
A7 (7.4cm x 10.5cm)

Popular Envelope Sizes
C4 (22.9cm x 32.4cm) Used for A4 brochures, or unfolded letters.
C5 (16.2cm x 22.9cm) Used for A4 letters folded in half, or A5 flyers/documents.
DL (11cm x 22cm) Popular for everyday business correspondence, A4 letters folded twice.

Useful everyday Printing Terms:

One Colour - Printing in either black or one specified colour. Pictures can be included using grey scale.

CMYK - Creating full colour using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. This is a standard used in litho printing, that is also common in the the new generation of digital printers.

Pantone (PMS) Colour - An industry wide system used to describe specific colours and a matching system for the printing industry to work with. PMS means Pantone Matching System and each colour is expressed as a number eg PMS 291 - which is a light blue. Colours can be created by a combination of CMYK values, or premixed as a spot colour ink, that is applied to the paper.

Spot Colour - A term used to describe a premixed colour created before application to a print job. Spot colours are often applied to 5 colour jobs where the printing press is printing CMYK, plus a specific spot colour - usually a corporate colour that is difficult to accurately achieve using CMYK. Sometimes a spot colour is applied where a metallic colour is required, as it is not possible to achieve a metallic effect from CMYK.