Types of Paper for Printing: Matching Paper to Your Projects
September 1, 2026
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A practical printer paper guide for Philadelphia offices: how weight, coating, texture and brightness change what comes out of your copier.
Quick Answer
The main types of paper for printing are sorted by two properties: weight (measured in GSM or pounds) and surface (coated gloss, coated matte, or uncoated). Most office documents run on 20 lb bond, roughly 75 to 80 GSM uncoated stock. Brochures and covers move up to 130 to 300 GSM coated stock. Pick the surface first, because it controls how sharp and saturated your ink looks, then pick a weight your copier can actually feed.
Types of Paper for Printing, Sorted the Way Buyers Actually Shop
Walk into a supply closet and you will find three or four reams with numbers nobody in the office can explain. 20 lb. 24 lb. 100 GSM. Somebody bought the heavy stuff for a client proposal two years ago and it has been jamming the mid tray ever since.
Here is the part most guides skip. Paper is described by two independent properties, and mixing them up is why print jobs come out wrong. The first property is weight, which is really thickness and stiffness. The second is surface, meaning whether the sheet has a coating and how much texture it carries. A heavy sheet can still look dull. A light sheet can look brilliant. Weight and surface are not the same dial.
Associated Imaging Solutions has been specifying paper and equipment for offices around Philadelphia, Bucks County and Montgomery County since 1999. The same handful of mismatches come up over and over: cardstock loaded in a tray rated for text weight, glossy photo stock fed through a laser device built for uncoated, and legal departments printing archival records on 92 bright copy paper. None of those are exotic problems. They are just specification errors.
So this guide is organized around the two dials. Weight first, then surface, then the specs almost nobody reads, and finally the question of what your specific machine will tolerate.
Paper Weight Decoded: GSM Versus the Pound System
Two systems describe the same thing, and only one of them is coherent.
GSM stands for grams per square meter. One square meter of the sheet is weighed, and the result is the number. It is a direct measure of density, it works across every paper category, and higher always means heavier. Simple.
The American pound system is the messy one. Basis weight is the weight of 500 sheets cut to the parent size for that paper category. And every category has a different parent size. Bond paper uses a 17 by 22 inch parent sheet. Text paper uses 25 by 38 inches. Cover paper uses 20 by 26 inches. So an 80 lb cover is noticeably thicker than a 100 lb text, even though 100 is the bigger number.
| Stock | GSM (approx.) | US basis weight | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightweight copy | 68 to 75 | 16 to 18 lb bond | Internal drafts, high volume runs |
| Standard copy | 75 to 80 | 20 lb bond | Everyday documents, the office default |
| Premium copy | 90 to 100 | 24 to 28 lb bond | Duplex printing, letterhead, proposals |
| Light text | 105 to 120 | 70 to 80 lb text | Newsletters, inserts, menus |
| Brochure stock | 130 to 170 | 90 to 115 lb text | Flyers, folded brochures, sell sheets |
| Light cover | 200 to 250 | 75 to 92 lb cover | Report covers, tent cards, postcards |
| Cardstock | 250 to 350 | 92 to 130 lb cover | Business cards, invitations, tags |
Treat those bands as approximations. Mills vary, and a 100 GSM sheet from one manufacturer can feel different from another because of bulk and fiber. But the ranges hold well enough to order from.
Where the weight jump actually matters
Moving from 20 lb to 24 lb bond is the single cheapest quality upgrade in most offices. Show through drops, duplex pages stop ghosting, and the sheet feels deliberate in someone’s hand. Cost per ream rises modestly. For proposals and client facing letters, it pays for itself in perception alone.
Going past roughly 160 GSM is where machines start to object. That is the threshold to check before ordering, not after.
Coated, Uncoated, and the Middle Ground
Coating is a mineral layer applied to the sheet surface. It sits between the fiber and your ink or toner, and it decides whether pigment sinks in or rests on top.
Uncoated paper
No coating at all. Ink absorbs into the fiber, which softens edges slightly and mutes saturation. The trade is legibility and writability: uncoated takes pen and pencil, resists glare under fluorescent light, and reads comfortably over long documents. Nearly all everyday copy paper is uncoated.
- Best for contracts, reports, letterhead, forms, anything read at length or written on
- Photographs and dense color blocks look flat by comparison
- Widely available in recycled and post consumer content
- Friendliest option for laser fusing and high speed feeding
Glossy coated paper
A heavy coating with a reflective finish. Ink sits on the surface, so blacks read deep and colors stay saturated. Photographs look their best here. But gloss reflects room light, which makes long passages of body text tiring, and it shows fingerprints on anything people handle repeatedly.
- Strongest choice for photo heavy brochures, product sheets and posters
- Poor choice for documents needing handwritten signatures or notes
- Many gloss stocks are made for inkjet or offset and will not survive a laser fuser
- Fingerprints and scuffs show quickly on high traffic pieces
Matte coated paper
Coated, but without the shine. You keep most of the color control of a coated surface while eliminating glare. For a lot of business printing, matte is the sensible middle: sharper than uncoated, calmer than gloss, and it takes pen reasonably well.
Satin and silk
Between matte and gloss, with a low sheen. Photography reproduces well and text stays readable. Silk stocks in the 130 to 170 GSM band are a common default for folded brochures because they handle scoring without cracking badly.
Textured, Colored and Specialty Stocks
Once weight and coating are settled, texture and color are the finishing choices.
Textured paper
Linen carries a faint woven pattern. Laid shows fine parallel lines and reads as traditional, which is why law firms and accounting practices around Philadelphia still order it for letterhead. Felt is softer and more tactile. Texture adds perceived quality at close range, and it costs you fine detail: small type and delicate line art lose crispness on a heavily textured sheet.
Colored paper
Two distinct products get called colored paper. Pastel copy stock is the cheap workhorse used for routing slips, department color coding and multi part internal forms. Deeper text and cover colors are a design material, used for covers, dividers and invitations. Watch contrast on the dark shades, because standard toner is not opaque and dark ink on dark stock disappears.
Recycled and certified stock
Post consumer recycled content is widely available now at 30 percent, 50 percent and 100 percent. Quality has improved to the point where 30 percent recycled copy paper runs indistinguishably from virgin stock in most office devices. Look for FSC or SFI certification if procurement asks for chain of custody documentation.
Specialty and synthetic
Carbonless multipart forms, label stock, tab stock, adhesive vinyl and synthetic sheets each carry their own feeding rules. Most of these need a bypass tray and a specific media setting on the device. Guessing here is how fusers get damaged.
Recycling rate for paper and paperboard in US municipal solid waste, the strongest of any major material category, per the most recent EPA Facts and Figures dataset. Note the EPA has not published a newer full year for all materials, so this figure is several years old and should be read as the latest official number rather than a current year measurement.
Brightness, Whiteness and Opacity
Three numbers appear on ream wrappers and almost nobody compares them. They are worth thirty seconds.
Brightness
A measure of how much blue light the sheet reflects, usually on a 1 to 100 scale. Standard copy paper sits around 92. Premium stock runs 96 to 100. Higher brightness raises contrast, so text looks crisper and color looks livelier. It also makes long reading sessions slightly harsher under bright office lighting.
Whiteness
Brightness only measures one slice of the spectrum, so two sheets rated 96 can look different. Whiteness describes the overall tint: some papers lean blue and read cold and modern, others lean cream and read warm and traditional. Mixing tints inside one bound document looks like a mistake even when the weights match.
Opacity
How much of the reverse side shows through, expressed as a percentage. And this is the spec to check before committing to duplex printing. Anything under roughly 90 percent opacity will ghost when you print both sides. Heavier stock generally has higher opacity, though fillers and coatings affect it too.
- Everyday internal printing: 92 brightness, 20 lb bond is fine
- Client facing single sided: 96 or higher brightness improves perceived quality
- Anything duplexed: prioritize opacity above 90 percent over brightness
- Bound documents: keep tint consistent across every sheet in the set
What Your Copier Can Actually Feed
Here is where a paper guide written by a dealer differs from one written by a print shop. Selecting a beautiful stock your device cannot handle just produces jams and service calls.
Every multifunction copier publishes media specifications, and they are stricter than most people assume. Standard cassettes on mid volume office devices typically top out somewhere near 160 to 200 GSM. The bypass or manual feed tray handles heavier stock, often to 250 or 300 GSM, but usually at reduced speed and with a smaller stack capacity. Duplexing units almost always carry a lower ceiling than simplex printing, sometimes by 50 GSM or more.
The failure modes we get called about
- Inkjet coated stock in a laser device. Inkjet coatings are formulated to absorb liquid ink. Run them through a fuser at roughly 350 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and the coating can blister or transfer onto the roller. This is an expensive lesson.
- Cardstock in a standard cassette. The tray feeds it, sort of, until the separation pad wears prematurely and misfeeds become constant.
- Duplexing heavy stock. Curl increases with weight, and the reversing path is where heavy sheets crumple.
- Humidity. Paper is hygroscopic. A ream left open in a damp Bucks County basement in August will jam a machine repeatedly, and the paper gets blamed instead of the storage.
- Wrong tray setting. Devices adjust fuser temperature and speed by media type. Loading heavy stock while the tray is still set to plain paper produces poor toner adhesion.
The range commonly cited by industry sources for print cost reduction after moving to a managed print program. Published figures vary substantially by research firm and by how baseline spend is measured, so treat this as a directional range rather than a precise benchmark.
Correct media settings and correct stock selection are a real part of what a managed print program does. If you are unsure what your fleet tolerates, the specification sheet for each model lists supported weights by tray, and our team reviews this during any managed print assessment.
Matching Paper to the Project
Most selection questions resolve quickly once you know the audience and the handling.
| Project | Suggested weight | Surface | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal memos, drafts | 75 GSM / 20 lb bond | Uncoated | Lowest cost per page, adequate for short life documents |
| Contracts and legal filings | 90 to 100 GSM / 24 lb | Uncoated | Takes ink signatures, higher opacity, archival feel |
| Letterhead and proposals | 100 to 120 GSM / 24 to 32 lb | Uncoated or lightly textured | Substance in hand without feeding problems |
| Folded brochures | 130 to 170 GSM | Silk or matte coated | Color holds up, folds without heavy cracking |
| Product sheets, photo heavy | 150 to 200 GSM | Gloss coated | Maximum saturation and detail |
| Report covers | 200 to 250 GSM | Matte or uncoated cover | Rigidity, resists curl and handling wear |
| Business cards | 300 to 350 GSM | Coated or uncoated cover | Stiffness signals quality, survives wallets |
| Presentation handouts | 90 to 120 GSM | Matte | No glare in a lit conference room |
Two habits save more grief than any chart. Order a sample and run it through your actual device before committing to a pallet. And buy one grade up from what seems necessary for anything a client will hold, because the difference is usually cheaper than a reprint.
What Paper Choices Do to the Budget
Paper looks inexpensive on a per ream basis. Standard copy paper runs roughly five to twelve dollars a ream depending on grade and contract pricing, and case pricing brings the unit cost down further. So the sheet itself is rarely the problem.
The problem is volume nobody is measuring. Print related spending is frequently described as one of the larger uncontrolled line items in an office budget, and a substantial share of what offices print is discarded the same day or never collected from the device at all. Estimates for abandoned and same day discarded output vary widely across published surveys, generally landing somewhere between a third and half of total output. Yet very few organizations track it directly.
Where paper decisions and print costs intersect
- Stocking too many grades. Every extra SKU adds storage, confusion and stale inventory. Three grades cover most offices comfortably.
- Buying premium for everything. High brightness stock on internal drafts is money burned. Reserve it for pieces going outside the building.
- Duplex defaults. Setting two sided printing as the device default reduces consumption immediately, provided your stock has the opacity for it.
- Pull printing. Requiring badge or code release at the device eliminates the abandoned job pile entirely.
- Storage. Sealed reams, off the floor, in stable humidity. Damaged paper is wasted paper plus a service call.
For a closer look at the consumables side of the same equation, our breakdown of how many pages an ink cartridge prints covers yield math and how it interacts with paper choice. Independent testing bodies including Keypoint Intelligence publish device level cost and quality data if you want third party benchmarks, and manufacturer media guides from Sharp list supported stock by model. The EPA Facts and Figures resource is the reference point for recovery and recycling rates.
How Associated Imaging Solutions Helps
Paper is one input. The device, the settings, the supply chain and the service plan are the rest of it.
Media Compatibility Review
We check the stock you want against the published tray and duplex specifications for every device in your fleet before you order.
Managed Print Programs
Usage tracking, automatic supply replenishment and print policy setup so consumption becomes visible instead of assumed.
Equipment Selection
If your work demands heavy or coated stock regularly, we match you to devices rated for it rather than forcing a workaround.
Local Service
Technicians covering Philadelphia, Bucks County and Montgomery County, with parts stocked for the platforms we place.
Device Configuration
Correct media profiles per tray, duplex defaults and secure release, configured at install instead of left at factory settings.
Flexible Acquisition
Lease, rental and purchase options, with terms sized to actual volume rather than an optimistic projection.
Associated Imaging Solutions has worked with Pennsylvania businesses since 1999, and paper questions come up in nearly every assessment we run. You can review our copier and printer lineup or read more about our team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main types of paper for printing?
Printing papers divide first by surface and then by weight. By surface you have uncoated, matte coated, silk or satin, and gloss coated, plus textured varieties like linen and laid. By weight the practical bands are copy stock around 75 to 100 GSM, text and brochure stock around 105 to 170 GSM, and cover or cardstock from roughly 200 to 350 GSM.
What is the difference between GSM and pound weight?
GSM measures grams per square meter directly, so it compares cleanly across every paper type. Pound basis weight measures 500 sheets at that category’s parent size, and each category uses a different parent size. That is why 80 lb cover is thicker than 100 lb text. Comparing pound figures across categories is meaningless, while GSM always works.
What weight paper is standard for office printing?
20 lb bond, roughly 75 to 80 GSM, is the default in most American offices. Moving up to 24 lb bond at about 90 to 100 GSM noticeably reduces show through on double sided printing and feels more substantial for client facing documents. The cost difference per ream is small.
Can I run glossy photo paper through a laser printer or copier?
Only if the stock is specifically rated for laser or digital printing. Inkjet glossy coatings are designed to absorb liquid ink and can blister, melt or transfer onto the fuser roller under laser heat. Damage from unsupported media is often excluded from service coverage, so check the packaging for a laser or digital designation before loading it.
What is the heaviest paper my office copier can handle?
It varies by model and by tray. Standard cassettes on typical office multifunction devices often top out near 160 to 200 GSM, while the bypass tray commonly reaches 250 to 300 GSM at reduced speed. Duplex paths usually carry a lower limit than single sided printing. The specification sheet for your exact model is the only reliable answer.
What does paper brightness mean and does it matter?
Brightness rates how much blue light a sheet reflects on a scale to 100. Standard copy paper is around 92 and premium grades run 96 or higher. Higher brightness increases contrast, which sharpens text and lifts color. For internal documents the difference rarely justifies the cost. For proposals and marketing pieces it is visible.
Why do my double sided prints show through the page?
Low opacity, usually. Opacity is the percentage of the reverse side blocked from view, and anything below roughly 90 percent will ghost when duplexed. Heavier stock generally has higher opacity. If your office duplexes routinely, specify opacity when ordering rather than relying on weight alone.
Is recycled paper bad for copiers?
Not anymore. Modern recycled stock at 30 percent post consumer content runs comparably to virgin paper in most office devices. Very high recycled content can produce slightly more dust in some machines, so if your fleet is older or runs high volume, testing a case before switching entirely is sensible.
What paper should I use for brochures?
Silk or matte coated stock in the 130 to 170 GSM range covers most folded brochures well. It holds color, resists glare and folds without cracking badly. Gloss at 150 to 200 GSM is stronger for photo heavy pieces, though it reflects light and shows fingerprints on anything handled repeatedly.
Does humidity really affect printing?
It does, more than people expect. Paper absorbs and releases moisture from the air, and sheets that have taken on humidity curl, stick together and jam. Keep reams sealed until use, store them off concrete floors, and avoid basements and unconditioned storage rooms. A lot of chronic jamming in older Pennsylvania buildings traces back to storage rather than the machine.
How many paper grades should an office stock?
Three usually covers it: a standard 20 lb uncoated for everyday volume, a 24 to 28 lb premium for client facing documents, and a cover weight for report covers and presentations. Beyond that you add storage cost and confusion at the tray without much practical gain.
Does Associated Imaging Solutions supply paper as well as equipment?
We focus on equipment, service and managed print programs, and we advise on media specification as part of that work. Paper supply can be included in a managed print agreement depending on volume and location. Call us at (215) 999-8445 to discuss what makes sense for your office.
Get Print Equipment Matched to the Work You Actually Do
Tell us what you print, how often, and on what stock. We will specify equipment rated for it and price a lease, rental or purchase around your real volume.
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