A book paper (or publishing paper) is a
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distribu ...
that is designed specifically for the
publication
To publish is to make content available to the general public.[Berne Conve ...](_blank)
of printed
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
s.
Traditionally, book papers are off-white or low-white papers (easier to read), are opaque to minimise the show-through of text from one side of the page to the other, and are (usually) made to tighter
caliper
A caliper (British spelling also calliper, or in plurale tantum sense a pair of calipers) is a device used to measure the dimensions of an object.
Many types of calipers permit reading out a measurement on a ruled scale, a dial, or a digital d ...
or thickness specifications, particularly for case-bound books. Typically, books papers are light-weight papers 60 to 90 g/m
2 and often specified by their caliper/substance ratios (volume basis). For example, a bulky 80 g/m
2 paper may have a caliper of 120 micrometres (0.12 mm) which would be Volume 15 (120×10/80), whereas a low bulk 80 g/m
2 may have a caliper of 88 micrometres, giving a volume 11. This volume basis then allows the calculation of a book's PPI (printed pages per inch), which is an important factor for the design of
book jackets and the
binding of the finished book.
Different paper qualities can be used as book paper depending on the type of book.
Machine-finished coated papers,
woodfree uncoated papers,
coated fine papers, and
special fine papers are common paper grades.
References
Paper
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