Units of paper quantity Simon Winchester, in "The Surgeon of Crowthorne", cites a specific number, defining quire as "a booklet eight pages thick." Several European words for quire keep the meaning of "book of paper": Ger. "Buch von Papier", Dan. "bog papir", Du. "bock papier". In blankbook binding, "quire" is a term indicating 80 pages. A ream of paper is a quantity of sheets of the same size and quality. International standards organizations define the ream as 500 identical sheets. This ream of 500 sheets (20 quires of 25 sheets) is also known as a 'long' ream, and is gradually replacing the old value
Paper size a number of different sizes were defined for large sheets of paper, and paper sizes were defined by the sheet name and the number of times it had been folded. Thus a full sheet of "royal" paper was 25 × 20 inches, and "royal octavo" was this size folded three times, so as to make eight sheets, and was thus 10 × inches. Imperial sizes were used in the United Kingdom and its territories. These sizes are no longer commonly used since the UK switched to ISO sizes. Many of these sizes were only used for making books (see bookbinding),