Continuous stationery

It is usually perforated transversely with a line of closely spaced holes or slits which form a tear edge that allows it to be torn neatly into separate pages after printing; when fed through the printer the paper is simply a continuous sheet.

The tear perforations may be short slits, which leave noticeable serrations when torn apart, acceptable for many business documents such as invoices or basic data (such as computer code).

Continuous form paper of all types remains in production, although largely supplanted with the introduction of fast laser printers with single-sheet feed.

Perforations are very small and close together, referred to as microperforations or microperf, to allow the sheets to be separated and the sprocket hole strip ("perfory," see "Shape and Form" section) torn off leaving a very smooth edge almost as if guillotine-cut.

Printing on continuous forms was at one time the basis for many business operations, not the least of which the direct mail industry.

A burster was typically used with printed continuous form paper applications such as mass-mail advertising, invoices, and account statements.

This paper type was developed for use with autographic registers around 1910, was later adopted by tabulating machines beginning in the 1920s,[7] and its use grew with the introduction of commercial computers in the 1950s.

[8] Continuous form paper became widely used and well known to the general public in the 1980s due to the development of microcomputers and inexpensive dot-matrix consumer printers.

Continuous form paper began to disappear from the consumer market in the 1990s as desktop publishing, and WYSIWYG document generation became more popular and widespread.