Royal (Paper)

A 25 by 20 inch sheet, a step above demy, used for better-quality books and printing.

Royal sits between demy and imperial, at 25 by 20 inches — five hundred square inches exactly, which is the tidiest figure in the whole traditional series and almost certainly a coincidence.

It was the sheet for work that wanted more margin than demy allowed: better books, plates, prints, and anything where the page was meant to feel generous. Royal octavo remains a publishing trim size, a little larger than demy octavo, and the distinction between the two is still visible on any shelf of hardbacks.

Super royal, at 27½ by 20½ inches, extended the same name upward for larger work.

The naming convention across the British sizes — royal, imperial, crown — reads as a hierarchy of grandeur rather than a system, and that is more or less what it was. These were mill names that became trade standards, not a scheme anyone designed.