Explore the four standard sizes of paper commonly used in an architecture engineering contracting office: 8.5 by 11, 11 by 17, 22 by 34, and 30 by 42. Understand their uses and their relationships with each other, as well as how their scalable properties facilitate workflow efficiency.
Key Insights
- The four standard sizes of paper used in architecture engineering contracting offices are 8.5 by 11, 11 by 17, 22 by 34, and 30 by 42. Smaller sizes are used for documents and correspondence, while larger sizes are used for blueprints and larger projects.
- 22 by 34 paper is commonly used for architectural drawings or blueprints. These can be scaled down and printed on an 11 by 17 sheet for check sets or red line markings, saving on paper use for larger projects.
- A 30 by 42 sheet, also known as an architectural E1 sheet, is used for larger projects. The scalable properties of these paper sizes enable efficient workflow, reducing waste and facilitating functional work.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
There are really four standard sizes of paper we use in an architecture engineering contracting office. That would be eight and a half by 11 pieces of paper. We use that for Microsoft Word type documents.
We'll use that for faxes, you know, if people still do much faxing. We'll do this for notes and correspondence or eight and a half by 11. We will use 11 by 17s for a lot of small size print jobs.
I think we all know that pretty much all of the printers we buy these days are 11 × 17, so they can be either called tabloid or ledger. We just typically call them 11 × 17. We have eight and a half by 11,11 × 17,22 × 34, and 30 × 42.
So what happens is that most of the architectural drawings that people put out for projects for blueprints these days are 22 × 34. So you can draw your drawings on these ANSI-D or 22 × 34 sheets of paper at the appropriate scale. And I'll say that the scale is a half inch equals a foot.
What I can do, though, is I can take this 22 × 34 and I can print it half again as small on 11 × 17. So what this lets me do is I can do a check set, which is a smaller size representation of the drawings using 11 × 17 paper that was legally scaled on the 22 × 34 sheet of paper, but it lets me do my red line marking on a set of projects without having to waste a whole lot of paper. So that's eight and a half by 11,11 × 17, and 22 × 34.
Learn Blueprint Reading
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
And then another sheet that's very common is 30 × 42, which is an architectural E1 sheet. These would be larger sheets of paper that are used for larger projects. And so again, if you look at the relationship, we have an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper here.
So eight and a half by 11 is essentially half the size of an 11 × 17. If I have my ANSI-D, you can see that I can get one, two, three, four 11 by 17s in the area of a 22 × 34. But again, the most common sizes that we use are eight and a half by 11,11 × 17,22 × 34, and 30 × 42.
Way back when, a lot of people would use 24 × 36 as a standard sheet. But now that people are using 11 × 17 printers so much that again, people can do their drawings on 22 × 34 and print a half-size set on the 11 × 17, and it's scalable, and it's very, very functional when you're working.
