How Much Paper do you Have?

I have asked this question a thousand times and I always get the same answer, silence, followed by "I don't know."  Figuring out how much paper you have is not that difficult if you just know how much paper is in a typical container. 

A standard banker box measuring 10" tall X 12" wide X 15" long will contain about 2200 pieces of paper.  This assumes there is about 100 folders in the box.  The more folders you have in a given space the less paper you are going to have in that same space.  If the box is packed tightly, you might get 2500-2700 pieces of paper in this container. 

Basically, you get about 150 sheets of paper per inch.  In a tightly packed box you will have about 175-200 sheets of paper per inch. 

In order to quantify how much paper you have, you will have to figure out two variables.  First you will need to know how many feet or inches of paper you have.  Secondly, you will have to figure out how much paper you have in an inch or foot.  Once you have both of those numbers just multiply them out and that will give you a great idea of how much paper you have.

In order to figure out your paper per inch number just look inside your containers and count how many files you have in a one foot section.  Next you will have to find out how much paper is in your typical file.  Just open up 10 or 12 documents and physically count how much paper is in each file.  Average that number out and multiply the number of documents in that one foot section times the average file length and that will yield the amount of paper you have per foot.  Now all that remains is to figure out how many total lineal feet of container space you have.

A typical vertical file cabinet is usually 18 to 26 inches deep and comes in two, four or five drawer variants.  A 26" deep 5 drawer file cabinet has about 10 lineal feet of drawer space.  If you have 5 of these cabinets you will have about 50 lineal feet of drawer space.  If you have 1800 sheets of paper per foot, your total amount of paper would be 90,000 sheets.   

Lateral file cabinets are usually between 30 and 42 inches wide and come with 1 to 6 drawers.  A foot of paper is a foot of paper whether it is in a standard banker box or a lateral file cabinet.  Just figure out how much feet of drawer space you have and multiply by the amount of paper you have in a foot.  A typical 4 drawer 36 inch lateral cabinet will contain about 21,600 images.