Folio definition7/3/2023 There are many variations in how such books were produced. The vast majority of books were printed in the folio, quarto, octavo or duodecimo formats. Smaller formats include the duodecimo (12mo or twelvemo), with twelve leaves per sheet and pages one-third the size of the quarto format, and the sextodecimo (16mo or sixteenmo), with sixteen leaves per sheet, half the size of the octavo format and one quarter the size of the quarto. The octavo format, with eight leaves per gathering, has half the page size of the quarto format before trimming. These terms are often abbreviated, using 4to for quarto, 8vo for octavo, and so on. ![]() These various production methods are referred to as the format of the book. : 80–81 The proportion of leaves of quartos tends to be squarer than that of folios or 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. 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. 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). For comparison, US Letter paper size is shown in green.īooks 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, foliō, ablative of folium, leaf ). Based on the 19 in × 24 in (48.3 cm × 61.0 cm) printing paper size, which equals 2 folio pages, 4 quarto pages, etc. Traditional book sizes/formats used in English-speaking countries. When the leaves were not trimmed, the reader would have to cut open the leaf edges using a knife. 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. 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. ![]() 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. 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. For example, a quarto (from Latin quartō, ablative form of quartus, fourth ) historically was a book printed on sheets of paper folded in half twice, with the first fold at right angles to the second, to produce 4 leaves (or 8 pages), each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed – note that a leaf refers to the single piece of paper, whereas a page is one side of a leaf. 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. 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). 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. Comparison of some book sizes based on American Library Association.
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