Choosing Best Paper for Your Order

You can choose which media you want for your print request through the “Media” tab.

If you are creating a book, you can change the media of the insides by clicking the “Media” tab like usual. To change the media of the covers, you can click the “Front Cover” tab and the “Back Cover” tab. For magazine-style booklets, use the “Wraparound Cover” tab.

For more information on how to change media, watch our How-To video How to Order Books, Magazines, and Readers, which will cover the different ways you can change or modify media options.

Depending on the job type you selected, different media selections will be available; for example:

• Standard Service will offer a variety of media that is easily processed for bulk reproductions
• The Postcards category will offer only media that is rigid enough for being processed by the post office, so you don’t have to worry about accidently selecting something too thin
• The Certificates category defaults to cover-weight parchment paper

Media options are named in the following manner:

• Length of longest edge of the sheet
  • 11” is 8.5 x 11” letter-sized
  • 14” is 8.5 x 14” legal-sized
  • 17” is 11 x 17” ledger-sized
  • 36” is 24 x 36” A-frame poster-sized
  • 48” is 36 x 48” giant poster-sized
• Paper weight
  • 20# is read as 20 pound
  • 65# is read as 65 pound
  • 90# is read as 90 pound
• Paper type
  • Bond is standard copy paper
  • Cover is thick like a book cover
  • Glossy has a coating that makes it shiny
  • Index is thick like an index card
  • Text is thin like the text in a book
  • Uncoated doesn’t have a coating

A few examples: the most common paper used is 11” 20# Standard White. Thick, shiny poster-sized paper is 17” 32/80# Text Glossy. An orange book cover would be 11” 65# Cover Cosmic Orange.

It is important to note the relationship between the paper weight and paper type. Paper type is an adjective that impacts the overall thickness of any given media of a set weight; as a result, media with a higher weight but a light modifier will be thinner than a lighter weight media with a heavier modifier. For example, 65# Cover is thicker media than 90# Index. If we apply this to vehicles, it would be like saying that a truck is usually heavier than a car, but a miniature truck is lighter than a super-sized car (with “miniature” and “super-sized” being the adjectives that modifies the weight).

This modifying adjective also impacts the media coating. Most of our media is uncoated, which means the media has a subtle texture that is ideal for writing on. Workbooks, worksheets, cards that people will write messages on, and note cards are best on uncoated stock such as Bond, Cover, and Index.

Some media has a shiny coating on it that makes the colors on the media appear brighter because of the reflective nature of the coating. We offer “silk” and “glossy” coatings, but they are hard to write on. Silk is semi-glossy and is best for magazines or brochures that combines text and pictures. It’s easier to read text on silk media than glossy. Glossy is highly reflective and is best suited for bringing out the colors in photographs or highly graphic imagery. 

Another way to measuring media is by grams per square meter (GSM), which is a system that doesn’t have modifiers. Some people find this easier and a conversion table is provided below to help you determine which media is thicker or thinner. The list below provides the media from thinnest to thickest.

Weight	Type	GSM
20#	Bond (all colors)	75
20#	Standard	75
60#	Text (all colors)	89
70#	Text Uncoated	104
32/80#	Text Glossy	118
90#	Index (all colors)	163
65#	Cover (all colors)	175
80#	Cover Glossy	215
80#	Cover Uncoated	215
110#	Cover	298