Nontrickpony: Book About Words

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The art of book binding may have originated in India but no one can say for sure.
Early books came in several formats before they arrived at the modern day book.

Scrolls where used in back then as bodies of text would only be around 30 pages long so a scroll of this size would easily fit in someones hand.
Roman texts where usually much longer, running at undress of pages.

Early Roman Scroll.

The Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' was a massive 200 pages long and in funerary services for the deceased.

Book of the Dead

Single and double core scrolls.

With a single core scroll the draw back is that to read the text at the core, the entire scroll must be unwound. With a double core scroll, the part not being read can remain but it still leaves a lot of winding and unwinding to be done to reach a particular page.

Early Book Formats

Diptychs

Wax Tablets

Polyptych

Codex

Here are some examples of elaborate covers of early codices and manuscripts.

Bookbinding Techniques.

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Book Sizes

The following are standard book size terms and their abbreviations that are still in active use today:


Double Elephant Folio (Fo) – a book that is approximately 50” tall or more.
Atlas Folio (Fo) – a book that is approximately 25” to 50” tall.
Elephant Folio (Fo) – a book that is approximately 23” to 25” tall.
Folio (Fo) – a book that is approximately 12” x 19”
Quarto (4to) – a book that is approximately 9 ½” x 12”
Imperial Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 8 ¼” x 11 ½”
Super Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 7” x 11”
Royal Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 6 1/2” x 10”
Medium Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 6” x 9 ¼”
Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 6” x 9”
Crown Octavo (8vo) – a book that is approximately 6” x 9”
DuoDecimo (12mo) – a book size approximately 5“ x 7 ¼”
Sexodecimo (16mo) – describes a book approximately 4” x 7 ½”
Octodecimo (18mo) – a book size approximately 4” x 6 ½”
Tricesimo-secondo (32mo) – a book size approximately 3 ½” x 5 ½”
Quadragesimo-octavo (48mo) – a book size approximately 2 ½” x 4”
Sexagesimo-quarto (64mo) – a book size approximately 2” x 3”