Shopping Cart Sometimes there can be a ridiculous amount of choices for a single item. This is definitely the case when it comes to office supplies. This situation can leave people wondering, what do I really need? Or what is the difference between all of these items?
Have you ever asked yourself that about copy paper? It’s such a simple thing, it’s only copy paper. Right? Well yes and no. Copy paper can be a very simple thing to purchase and on occasion it can be a somewhat complicated thing to purchase. The trouble with purchasing copy paper comes from not knowing what you specifically need in your copy paper.
It is also tough because most people don’t know what is standard in the variables. It’s those little things we take for granted, and don’t realize are right in front of us every day until someone asks us and then we don’t really know. Like which end of the traffic light is the green light on, top or bottom? We look at it every day, multiple times a day but when asked that question we pause because it’s not a fact we compute even if we do look at it regularly.
So how heavy do you need your copy paper to be? What brightness should that copy paper be? How many reams come in a case and do you need that much paper?
Well here’s a quick cheat sheet for you. Standard copy paper is 20 lb weight and has a brightness of 92. It comes in reams of 500 sheets and a case of paper contains 10 reams for a total of 5,000 sheets. Standard cardstock is around 60 to 65 lb in weight. That tells you the difference between plain copy paper and cardstock but we’ll help you a little more. If you need paper that doesn’t have show through when printed on but you don’t want the heaviness of cardstock you need a weight of 28-32 lb paper.
Hopefully these tips and guidelines will simplify the process of picking out copy paper for you next time you get hit with the question of what “kind of paper do you need?”.
