The effect of percentage solids content, coating film thickness and plastic pigment on mechanical properties of coated paper was studied. The results showed that the tensile strength, TEA, stretch and tensile stiffness were improved as the percentage solids content and the coating film thickness were increased. Bending stiffness slightly increased when solids content was increased and showed higher values on increasing the coating film thickness. The addition of plastic pigment to both clay based and GCC based coating mixtures improved the mechanical properties considered in this study. Although tensile strength and tensile stiffness increased with the addition of plastic pigment of smaller particle size, stretch and TEA showed a reverse trend. (C) 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.