Take Note: The Paper Industry Is Planning a Big Comeback

Remember paper?

Memos to sign. Maps to fold. Letters to write. Calendars to flip.

Wistful paper executives remember. They’ve watched e-mail, annotatable PDFs, digital calendars and paperless billing diminish more than a third of the copy- and writing-paper business in recent years, spurring mill closures and eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

But now paper and packaging — still a $132 billion industry but absorbing a 5 percent loss in office- and writing-paper revenue each year — is fighting back.