Card stock, also called cover stock and pasteboard, is paper that is thicker and more durable than normal writing and printing paper, but thinner and more flexible than other forms of

paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 points) than paper and has certain superior attributes ...

. Card stock is often used for

business card Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company or business af ...

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as woo ...

playing cards A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a f ...

, catalogue covers,

scrapbooking Scrapbooking is a method of preserving, presenting and arranging personal and family history in the form of a book, box or card. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequ ...

, and other applications requiring more durability than regular paper gives. The surface usually is smooth; it may be textured, metallic, or glossy. When card stock is labeled cover stock, it often has a glossy coating on one or both sides (''C1S'' or ''C2S'', for "coated: one side" or "coated: two sides"); this is used especially in business cards and book covers.

Measurements

Most nations describe paper in terms of

grammage Grammage and basis weight, in the pulp and paper industry, are the area density of a paper product, that is, its mass per unit of area. Two ways of expressing grammage are commonly used: * Expressed in grams (g) per square meter (g/m2), regar ...

—the weight in grams of one sheet of the paper measuring one square meter. Other people, especially in the United States, describe paper in terms of pound weight—the weight in pounds per ream (500 sheets) of the paper with a given area (based on historical production sizes before trimming): for card stock, this is ; as compared to newsprint (thinner paper) of . In describing paper, the pound is often symbolized by the pound symbol, ''#''. Because of the difference in the way pound weight is determined, a sheet of 65# card stock is thicker and heavier than a sheet of 80# newsprint. The weight of cardstock ranges from 50# to 110# (about 135 to 300 g/m²). Rather than as a function of weight per sheet of a given area, paper thickness can be measured and stated directly, in units of linear measure. In the United States, this usually is expressed in thousandths of an inch, often abbreviated '' thou points'' (''pt.'' and ''pts.'') and ''mils''. For example, a 10 pt. card is thick (corresponding to a weight of about 250 g/m²), and 12 pt. is . The thou point (1/1,000 inch) differs from the typographical point (1/12 traditional pica = exactly 0.01383

inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth ...

= 0.35136 mm). The length and width of card stock often are stated in terms of the ISO system of

paper sizes Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents. The ISO 216 standard, which includes the commonly used A4 size, is the international standard for paper size. ...

, in which specific dimensions are implied by numbers prefixed with the letter ''A''. Card stock labeled ''A3'', for example, measures 420 × 297 mm (16.5 × 11.7 in).

References

Paper Printing terminology {{Material-stub

Measurements

See also

References