At every Print Buyer Boot Camp™ we produce, there's a module about Paper. Steve Suffoletto, Senior Training Specialist at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) is one of our Boot Camp instructors. The paper module is one of Steve's, and it is chock full of great content. As I looked over the Boot Camp workbook, nifty facts caught my eye. I wanted to share just 14 of them with you.

1. In printing, paper is also known as a substrate, which can be any material printed on, including plastic, foils, and film.

2. Paper in our industry serves two key purposes: it's functional, because it "accepts" the ink. To the customer/end user, it has an "optical" purpose - how does it look?

3. Paper has two sides: the felt side (which is smooth) and the wire side. This relates to part of the papermaking process.

4. Optical properties of paper include whiteness, brightness, fluorescence, gloss and opacity.

5. A paper's brightness has nothing to do with its print quality, though many people think it does.

6. Paper is categorized by "Grade" among other things. The top Grade is Premium, followed by Grades 1 through 5. The higher the Grade, the higher the Brightness of the sheet.

7. A ream of paper is 500 sheets. The basis weight, according to The Pocket Pal, refers to "the weight in pounds of a ream of paper cut to a sheet's given standard size for that grade."

8. Mechanical pulp refers to groundwood pulp made by mechanically grinding wood chips and logs. Every bit of a tree is used for groundwood paper - or newsprint.

9. Chemical pulp refers to pulp that's been treated at a papermaking facility with chemicals (duh) to remove impurities, including lignin, which makes paper turn yellow. Fine paper is made from chemical pulp.

10. We recommend that print customers let printers purchase their paper, for the most part. Let printers take full responsibility for the paper's condition and performance. (Very experienced print customers who buy a large volume of paper sometimes buy their own.)

11. 30% of the world's paper products are recycled.

12. Often, today's recycled paper looks too good. Sometimes a customer asks a printer to "dirty it up a bit" so it appears like one thinks recycled paper should look.

13. To make white paper from recycled paper, the ink must first be removed in a process called deinking.

14. The familiar, tri-arrow, Mobius-loop "recycled" symbol that is either white with outlines or solid black means that the piece MAY be recycled - not that it IS recycled.

There you have them: 14 interesting ice breakers for your next networking function. Go on, impress your friends. Terms used in this tip can be found in our comprehensive, online Print Buyer Glossary along with hundreds more. (Send us new terms using our online form there.) Thanks, Steve Suffoletto!

Next November 3rd, we'll be offering a brand-new Advanced Print Buyer Boot Camp for experienced print buyers. It will run from 9 to 5. From 1 to 5 pm on that same day, we're offering a Print Rep Boot Camp to talk with printers about buying trends/practices. Mark your calendar and join us.