A device used to quantitatively measure the printability of a paper, and make printing ink samples. The concept of printability is a highly subjective one, and over the years many attempts have been made to make it more objective, including the use of printing presses in laboratory conditions, as well as specific printability testing devices (such as the Prüfbau, IGT, Huck and Caibang printability testers) to measure a host of paper properties, such as print density, paper smoothness, pick resistance, ink setoff, ink transfer, and many other interrelated properties that affect print quality. So far, however, a widely-accepted numerical value gauging printability has yet to be devised. (See Paper and Papermaking: Paper Properties.)
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