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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influences of fibre lengths and a given range of paper grammages on the fundamental properties of unprinted and printed papers by using mineral oil-based offset printing inks and also evaluate these results in terms of printing and tensile characteristics. Design/methodology/approach A design research approach has been based on the production of various laboratory handmade papers and their printing process with mineral oil-based offset printing inks. The analysis of mechanical and structural tests results of the unprinted and the printed papers have been evaluated. Findings This study is confirmed that the mineral oil-based offset printing inks can be easily applied to the surface of papers having different grammages and pulp contents. An increase was observed in the tensile index values of the papers with the printing process, and these increases were more evident (about 80%) particularly in low grammage papers having high short fibre content. Originality/value The originality of this work is based on understanding and comparing the effects of grammage and the effect of pulp contents (having long and short fibre) on tensile characteristics of printed and unprinted handsheets.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to optimize the key parameters (mesh count, paper type and ink type) in screen printing, which are affecting the printed ink volume. The objective of the optimization was to maximize the color reliability by decreasing the color difference (ΔE value) of the prints while minimizing the ink consumption. Screen printing is still dominating the printing industry to make cost-effective production when high volumes are needed. Design/methodology/approach The experiment was designed using the Taguchi method, and the samples were prepared with screen-printing by using the standard squeegee angle and pressure. The effect of mesh count, ink type and paper type on ink consumption was evaluated with using analysis of variances and main effects plots of S/N ratio and standard deviation. Findings The factors ink type, paper type and mesh count were found significant for ink consumption due to their Probability (P) values which were lower than 0.05. It was determined that the mesh count was the most critical variable with the analysis of variance. The analysis showed that the selection of an optimum mesh count was the key to controlling the amount of the deposited ink. Although mesh counts were inversely proportional with the ink consumptions, they did not affect the color differences as expected. Originality/value The optimization of process parameters, that are most effective on the print quality, is necessary to minimize the ink usage and lower the costs and environmental impact without exceeding the desired ΔE value limits.