papiNet — EDI for the paper and forest industry

papiNet is the global XML standard of the paper, pulp and wood-products industry. Launched in the early 2000s as a joint initiative of European and North-American producers, it moves orders, confirmations, delivery messages and invoices between paper mills, printers, publishers and merchants.

What is papiNet?

The paper trade has units and attributes that horizontal standards do not model: reels (diameter, width, machine direction), grammage, pulp grades, wood species, weight-based delivery tolerances. papiNet encodes this vocabulary in shared XML schemas, sparing every mill-printer pair from negotiating a private dictionary. The standard merged the European (around CEPI) and North-American work — hence its adoption on both sides of the Atlantic and in Scandinavia, the industry's global heartland.

The papiNet messages

The paper specifics

• The reel as the unit — each reel is individually identified (barcode label), tracked from mill to press.
• Rich product attributes — grammage, width, diameter, core, brightness, forest certification (FSC/PEFC).
• Weight-based deliveries with tolerances — you order tonnes, you receive reels: the messages carry the admissible variances.
• Consignment / VMI — stocks at the printer or the port, tracked through the inventory and usage messages.

papiNet in the sector landscape

• vs EDIFACT: the industry largely preferred its vertical XML over generic EDIFACT subsets — the business vocabulary is native.
• vs PIDX / CIDX: the same family of process-industry vertical standards, each on its own value chain.
• Today: the standard remains maintained and active, notably in Scandinavia, DACH and North America; regulatory e-invoicing (EN 16931) is added downstream without replacing it.

Further reading

• papinet.org — schemas and documentation.
• Transport: AS2.
• The vertical cousins: PIDX, CIDX.