Grammage ream developed because such a size can easily be cut into sixteen 6 by book sized sheets without significant waste. Early newsprint presses printed sheets in size, and so the ream dimensions for newsprint became , with 500 sheets to a ream. Newsprint was made from ground wood pulp, and ground wood hanging paper (wallpaper) was made on newsprint machines. Newsprint was used as wrapping paper, and the first paper bags were made from newsprint. The newsprint ream standard also became the standard for packaging papers, even though in packaging papers kraft pulp rather than ground wood was used for
Paper machine consistency levelling chest having about 15 minutes retention. This is enough retention time to allow any variations in consistency entering the chest to be levelled out by the action of the basis weight valve receiving feedback from the on line basis weight measuring scanner. (Note: Many paper machines mistakenly control consistency coming out of the machine chest, interfering with basis weight control.) There are four main sections on this paper machine. The forming section makes the pulp into the basis of for sheets along the wire. The press section, which removes much of the remaining water via a system of