# Is full colour printing on onionskin paper commercially feasible?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-full-colour-printing-on-onionskin-paper-commercially-feasible/690154>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 5, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-full-colour-printing-on-onionskin-paper-commercially-feasible/690154 "2014-06-05T22:27:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-full-colour-printing-on-onionskin-paper-commercially-feasible/690154/1 "2014-06-05T22:27:52Z")

</div>

I’ve got a couple of books, bought many years ago, printed on onionskin paper. Being so thin, it seems ideal for the printing of compendia, but today’s marketplace demands pictures, and I would like to know about full colour **commercial** printing on onionskin paper. Is it possible? Is it feasible?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [June 5, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-full-colour-printing-on-onionskin-paper-commercially-feasible/690154/2 "2014-06-05T23:30:47Z")

</div>

Yes. A good pressman can adjust the ink characteristics (viscosity, density, dot pattern) to print well on almost any kind of material. I’ve never gone further than preflight and press checks, but at a guess, it might take two passes (or even four) with drying stages in between to get the highest resolution with minimal dot bleed and smearing.

It has a lot more to do with the surface of the paper - calendaring and coating - than its thickness or appearance, per se.