# Printer paper question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443 "2003-05-06T17:00:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![insider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@insider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/insider)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/1 "2003-05-06T17:00:35Z")
Could it some day be possible for printer paper to have all the necessary ink embedded in the paper so that a special printer would just have to bring only those colors necessary for the job to the surface? I guess you could call it “smart” paper. I was reading somewhere that science is working on a newspaper that could be used over and over again by just plugging it into a computer and that would remove the old news and print the new news on the same paper. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/2 "2003-05-06T17:03:53Z")
Back in the Dark Ages, we had just this sort of thing. It was called “Thermal Printing”, and it was the invention of the Devil. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/3 "2003-05-06T17:24:07Z")
Yep, I remember my old Sinclair Spectrum came with a printer that used rolls of paper, a bit like a till receipt roll, that had a silver coating (actually aluminium, I think). The printer burnt this coating away, I think, to produce black print, to the accompaniment of a pungent smell. No colour, though. There’s a pic of one [here](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81). ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/4 "2003-05-06T17:24:07Z")
Yep, I remember my old Sinclair Spectrum came with a printer that used rolls of paper, a bit like a till receipt roll, that had a silver coating (actually aluminium, I think). The printer burnt this coating away, I think, to produce black print, to the accompaniment of a pungent smell. No colour, though. There’s a pic of one [here](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/5 "2003-05-06T23:54:39Z")
I’ve read of this paper, too. As I understand it, the ink consists of little balls of pigment, white on one side, black on the other, which have a permanent electric dipole moment. Apply an electric field one way, the balls line up black up, apply a field the other way, and they’re white up. I’m not sure how practical this is, though. If you want a changeable display, what’s wrong with an LCD? ---
**Author:** ![herman\_and\_bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f1d935/32.png) [@herman\_and\_bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/herman_and_bill)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/6 "2003-05-07T10:30:15Z")
Kind of like NCR encapsulated paper? ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/7 "2003-05-07T14:18:08Z")
The pigment would also have to be safe to touch. I wonder what happens if you get it on your hands? Reuseable paper doesn’t seem very practical to me at all. ---
**Author:** ![bradwalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@bradwalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bradwalt)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printer-paper-question/173443/8 "2003-05-07T15:28:17Z")
It would cost a lot of money to print those manuals that have pages saying: “This Page Intentionally Left Blank”. 🙂