India paper is a type of

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

which from 1875 has been based on

bleach Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically t ...

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a plant in the botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial and consumable use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest ...

and rag fibres, that produced a very thin, tough opaque white paper. It has a

basis weight Grammage and basis weight, in the pulp and paper industry, are the area density of a paper product, that is, its mass per unit of area. Two ways of expressing the area density of a paper product are commonly used: * Expressed in grams (g) per ...

of 20 pounds (30 g/m²; typical office paper is 80 g/m²), yet bulks 1,000 pages to the inch (). It became popular in particular for the printing of

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

s, which could be made relatively small and light while remaining legible. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica boasted, "Printed on thin, but strong opaque India paper, each volume but one inch in thickness." The process was used particularly by the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

and its paper suppliers. The name arose because the paper imitated fine papers imported from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. India paper has also often been used for the printing of die proofs of postage stamps.

References

See also