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.
#Define folio series#
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. Other common book formats are quarto and octavo, which are both also printing formats, involving two and three folds in the sheet respectively.įamous folios (in both senses) include the Gutenberg Bible, printed in about 1455, and the First Folio collected edition of Shakespeare's plays, printed in 1623 however, their actual size is rather different.Comparison of some book sizes based on American Library Association. Third, folio is also used as an approximate term for a size of book, typically about 15 inches (38 cm) tall, and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. This will be on the right hand side of the opening of any book composed in a script that is read from left-to-right, such as Latin (as used in English), Cyrillic, or Greek, and will be opposite for books composed in a script that is read from right-to-left, such as Hebrew and Arabic. This usually appears abbreviated: "f26r." means the first side of the 26th leaf in a book. Second, folio is used in terms of page numbering for some books and most manuscripts that are bound but without page numbers as an equivalent of "page" (both sides), "sheet" or "leaf", using "recto" and "verso" to designate the first and second sides, and (unlike the usage in printing) disregarding whether the leaf concerned is actually physically still joined with another leaf. Ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or "gathering" of leaves prior to binding the book.
Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet.
#Define folio full#
The term "folio" (from Latin folium 'leaf'), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book made in this way second, it is a general term for a sheet, leaf or page in (especially) manuscripts and old books and third, it is an approximate term for the size of a book, and for a book of this size.įirst, a folio (abbreviated fo or 2o) is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets of paper, on each of which four pages of text are printed, two on each side each sheet is then folded once to produce two leaves. Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes
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