Executive Paper Size

Most of us are familiar with letter and legal paper sizes. Our friends from overseas are probably more familiar with A-series paper sizes—i.e., A0 to A8. But have you heard about the executive paper? Not many people have.

Executive paper measures 7 inches wide and 10.5 inches long. However, there are different variants of this, which are executive 2 (7.25 × 10.5 inches) and executive 3 (7.5 × 10.5 inches). As you can see, executive paper is slightly smaller than letter-size and A4 paper.

For those just learning about executive paper, you’re probably wondering what it’s used for. I’ll address this question and more in the following sections.

What Is Executive Paper?

Executive paper is just like any ordinary sheet of printing paper. It is rectangular in shape, but it has a slightly different aspect ratio compared to letter and legal paper sizes, which are, by far, the most commonly used paper sizes in North America.

This type of paper is mainly used for writing personal letters. However, you can do that on pretty much any sheet of paper, including tiny 5 × 7 sheets that measure, well, 5 × 7 inches. If you take a look at a seller’s description of executive paper, they might tell you that the “unique” paper size will make your letter pop out. Whether this is true or not depends on how attentive the reader is to paper dimensions.

One benefit of using executive paper over letter, legal, and tabloid/ledger paper is that you can waste less paper. Most of the time, we don’t utilize the entire printing area on an 8.5 × 11-inch letter-size sheet. While the difference in dimensions between executive and letter is minute, it can add up to quite a huge pile of wastage over time.

Since there is no law that forces organizations to write official documents on a specific paper size, you are more than welcome to swap letter paper with executive paper any time you want. Some might even call this a win since executive paper is slightly smaller than letter and legal paper.

Executive Paper Size

As I explained earlier in this guide, the exact measurements of executive paper sheets are 7 inches wide and 10.5 inches long. However, executive paper comes in 3 variants—executive 1, 2, and 3.

Here’s a quick breakdown of each of these paper size’s dimensions.

Executive Paper Size	Width	Length	Surface Area
1	7 in.	10.5 in.	73.500 sq. in.
2	7.25 in.	10.5 in.	76.125 sq. in.
3	7.5 in.	10.5 in.	78.750 sq in.

From the table above, you’ll notice how the three executive paper sizes don’t differ much. The most significant difference is between executive 1 and 3, and even then, there’s only a difference of 5.25 square inches (0.5 × 10.5 inches).

How Does Executive Paper Compare to Other Paper Sizes?

In North America, the most common paper sizes are letter and legal, though tabloid/ledger paper also gets its fair share of love. In the rest of the world that follows the ISO 216 paper sizing standard, they’re more accustomed to using A4 sheets of paper for printing and writing notes.

So, how does executive paper compare to letter, legal, and A4 paper? Let’s find out together.

Paper Size	Width	Length	Surface Area
A4	8.5 in.	11.7 in.	99.45 sq. in.
Letter	8.5 in.	11 in.	93.5 sq. in.
Legal	8.5 in.	14 in.	119 sq. in.
Ledger/Tabloid	17 in.	11 in.	187 sq. in.

You can tell immediately from the dimensions of each paper type that executive paper is considerably smaller. The largest executive paper size (3) is 20.7 square inches less than the smaller paper size (A4) in the table above, let alone other paper sizes used in North America.

As such, you should be incredibly careful of your printer’s setting when using executive paper. It is at least half an inch shorter than letter and ledger/tabloid sheets, which means that you might end up filling the empty margins on the bottom portion of the paper.

How Much Does a Ream of Executive Paper Weigh?

On Amazon, the top-selling ream of executive paper is made by Monarch. It measures 7 × 10.5 inches (executive 1) and contains 250 sheets in a pack. Altogether, the ream weighs a total of 2.99 pounds.

If you want to take it a step further and calculate the weight of an individual sheet of executive paper, all you have to do is divide 2.99 pounds by 250 sheets. Doing so will give you a total of 0.01196 pounds or 0.19136 ounces.