Kainos Books offers a wide choice of papers suitable for book and booklet printing. We have included a description of our papers below, as well as recommendations for their use. We only use premium quality paper from several suppliers. We are an environmentally sensitive organisation.

Bond stocks are our most economical stocks. They are suitable whenever price is the major concern. They are sutiable for books and booklets (especially black and white publications).

Uncoated stocks are easy to write on, are not reflective, are the whitest stocks we offer, and have a very smooth finish.

Our satin and gloss stocks are most suitable for books illustrated with photographs. Satin is a smooth dull finish with a classical, sophisticated, understated and very elegant look. Gloss is a much shinier, more reflective ‘get up and go’ stock. Both are suitable for text and images. Satin is a better choice if reflections from light sources might be a problem. We tend to think that photos reproduce better on satin stocks slightly better than gloss stocks.

Here is a detailed description of the various papers we use, along with recommendations for their use.

80gsm uncoated

A white smooth bond stock especially suitable for books, saddle stitched booklets and inexpensive flyers. This is the standard ‘bond’ stock you will be familiar with as it is most commonly used in office printers. Do not use this paper if you want high quality punchy colour reproduction — for instance art reproduction or quality photography — use 115gsm or 130gsm satin or gloss. We would recommend this stock for fiction, and for any book with many hundreds of pages.

90gsm uncoated

A white smooth economy bond stock especially suitable for books and saddle stitched booklets. The paper is light and thin, but being thicker than standard 80gsm bond, ‘see through’ is limited. Do not use this paper if you want high quality punchy colour reproduction — for instance art reproduction or quality photography — use 115gsm or 130gsm satin or gloss. We recommend this stock for text only books, or books with text and black and white line drawings. It is slightly thicker than 80gsm stock and has a slightly more quality feel about it.

100gsm uncoated

A high quality high white very smooth stock especially suitable for books and saddle stitched booklets. The paper is light, but being high quality, limits ‘see through’. It is easy to write on. Do not use this paper if you want high quality punchy colour reproduction — for instance art reproduction or quality photography — use 115gsm or 130gsm satin or gloss. We recommend this stock for text only books, or books with text and black and white line drawings. It is thicker again than 80gsm or 90gsm stock and has a slightly more quality feel about it. It is recommended particularly for books with a limited number of pages.

115gsm satin and gloss

This is a very light coated stock. We recommend it for colour or black and white illustrated books with a large number of pages, but not for any other purpose.

130gsm satin and gloss

This is our most commonly used stock. We recommend it as the first choice for books and booklets with colour or black and white illustrations that are not line drawings (for which uncoated stocks can be used). We have a slight preference for satin as it is less reflective and we think images stand out just that little bit better when printed on satin stocks.

150gsm satin and gloss

This is a slightly heavier stock. It can be used for much the same things as 130gsm stock. It is a great stock to use if you want to convey a luxurious feel about your book.

170gsm satin and gloss

This is a heavier stock again. It would rarely be used for the internal pages of a book, as the paper is stiffer than 130 or 150gsm stocks, and a perfect bound book will never lie flat printed on 170gsm stock.

200gsm satin and gloss

This can be used for book and booklet covers. It is the lightest we would recommend.

250gsm satin and gloss

Commonly used for saddle stitched booklet covers.

300 gsm satin and gloss

These are heavy board type stocks and are our second choice for book covers.

260gsm Artboard

Our artboard stocks are our stocks of choice for book covers. They have degree of ‘glossiness’ about half way between gloss and satin. We recommend 260gsm for books intended to have a “mass market” feel about them — novels, cheap marketing books for instance. We would NOT recommend this weight for large format books — B5, A4 for instance.

310gsm Artboard

A heavy artboard with a degree of ‘glossiness’ about half way between gloss and satin. We highly recommend this stock. It has a good ‘flick’ factor, it is easy to print on, and produces quality results. It is also excellent for celloglazing. It is by far our stock of choice for book covers, especially quality books.