Grammage ream developed because such a size can easily be cut into sixteen 6 by book sized sheets without significant waste. Early newsprint presses printed sheets in size, and so the ream dimensions for newsprint became , with 500 sheets to a ream. Newsprint was made from ground wood pulp, and ground wood hanging paper (wallpaper) was made on newsprint machines. Newsprint was used as wrapping paper, and the first paper bags were made from newsprint. The newsprint ream standard also became the standard for packaging papers, even though in packaging papers kraft pulp rather than ground wood was used for
Units of paper quantity sheets of vellum or parchment, i.e. 8 leaves, 16 sides. The term "quaternion" (or sometimes "quaternum") designates such a quire. A quire made of a single folded sheet (i.e. 2 leaves, 4 sides) is a "bifolium" (plural "bifolia"); a "binion" is a quire of two sheets (i.e. 4 leaves, 8 sides); and a "quinion" is five sheets (10 leaves, 20 sides). This last meaning is preserved in the modern Italian term for quire, "quinterno di carta". Formerly, when paper was packed at the paper mill, the top and bottom quires were made up of slightly damaged sheets ("outsides") to protect