Reams to Pieces (rm to pc)

1 ream equals 500 pieces exactly.

1 ream = 500 pieces

How to convert reams to pieces

To convert reams to pieces, multiply the number of reams by 500. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply pieces by 0.002.

pieces = reams × 500

Example: 10 reams = 5,000 pieces.

Large-number names differ around the world: this site uses the short scale (billion = 10⁹) by default, and lists the long-scale billion separately.

About these units

Ream (rm)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

500 sheets of paper (20 quires), the standard retail package for printer paper. A short ream of 480 sheets survives for some specialty papers.

Ream comes from the Arabic rizmah, a bundle of paper, passing through Spanish resma and Old French reyme; the Moors introduced cotton papermaking to Spain. Its size has varied. The modern standard, 500 sheets or 20 quires of 25, is the ISO and DIN definition and what retail paper almost always means. A short ream of 480 sheets, 20 quires of 24, was formerly the British standard and survives for tissue, greaseproof, handmade, and blotting papers. J. S. Bach's Weimar manuscript paper was ordered by the 480-sheet ream.

Other versions include the 516-sheet printer's or perfect ream, the 504-sheet envelope-paper ream, and the 472-sheet mill ream for handmade paper, which was 18 quires of 24 good sheets plus two 20-sheet quires of damaged ones. In 1922 the UK set machine-made writing and printing paper at 500 sheets. ISO 4046-3:2002 defines a ream as a pack of 500 identical sheets and recommends another term, such as pack, for other counts.

1 ream = 500 pieces (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Units of paper quantity

Piece (pc)

General & non-SICurrent unit

A single item.

Piece is the plain unit for counting individual items, with no grouping implied. The word reached English from Old French piece, which came from Late Latin pecia or petia, meaning a fragment or a parcel of land. Its ultimate origin is uncertain, though Wiktionary notes a possible Gaulish source. It displaced the native Old English styce, which meant the same kind of thing.

Wiktionary defines it as a single item belonging to a class of similar items, and the word turns up in compounds such as by the piece, piece rate, and piecework. Every other counting unit in this family is just a fixed number of pieces: a pair is 2, a dozen 12, a gross 144, and a great gross 1,728. Treating the piece as the base is what lets any of them convert into any other by simple multiplication or division.

The piece is the reference unit for counting & quantity on this site.

Sources: Wiktionary: piece

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