Evolving, Transferrable Impressions – Carbonless Paper

Written by Liam Cummings
Marketing Manager, Paper and Value Add Media
Xerox Corporation

Carbonless Paper captureThe influence of technology on everything we do today is intended to make things simpler and more efficient, eliminating duplicate activities whenever possible. Think of Siri, or a printer that learns your operating hours and adjusts its power cycle accordingly as examples of modern efficiencies.   On the paper side of the world this intent was utilized some time back with the use of carbon paper, which was a sheet of paper that essentially had a side coated in ink. This sheet was inserted between sheets of plain paper placed with the ink side down to transfer impressions that were made on the top sheet to the following layers of carbon paper and plain paper.  If you signed on the signature line on the top sheet of a contract it carried down the layers to the signature line of the oriented copies below.  As a child getting a discarded sheet of carbon paper was fascinating to experiment with.  For whatever reason it was more fun to write on the back of the carbon paper to transfer the impression than it was to write directly on the paper.
Carbon-less paper began to evolve sometime after, using the same principle of pressure on the top sheet to transfer the impression but instead of carbon paper it incorporated chemicals encapsulated within the sheet.  Thus it is carbon-less paper.  The same applications that suited carbon paper are all of that and more today with carbonless paper in conjunction with digital print technology.  Multiple industries incorporate these sheets from government to finance to education and pharmaceuticals. Today you can create multi-part business forms on demand from your printer, eliminating the need for high set up costs or inventories that would have been experienced in the past.
Xerox Carbonless Paper has been specifically designed for use in copiers and laser printers from high speed to desktop, from black and white to color, and is guaranteed to run trouble free.  The introduction of EA (Emulsion Aggregate) toners (dry ink technology) have required modifications to enable a robust and compatible product in the carbonless lines to be useful across all lines.  And Xerox Premium Digital Carbonless is just that. Now is a good time to see for yourself during our Carbonless Bonus Bucks campaign.  So as changes progress necessitating other changes to keep current the need to replicate unique identifiable impressions will also continue to develop.   How ironic it is that carbon copy forms have evolved into carbonless forms on a copier.  How far into technology will this evolve?

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