NORTH AMERICA—  Print buyers are being warned to plan their paper requirements months ahead, with reports of a global squeeze on the availability of most printing grades. Bloomberg has reported that in the USA an estimated 100m catalogues were not be printed for retailers’ crucial pre-Christmas sales drive due to a shortage of paper. Most web printers in Canada have been on allocation and a lot of sheetfed are finding it difficult to get paper for even normal jobs. Some printers are claiming if they can find the paper then they can get the job, price is not an issue.  Some printers  claim the situation is “as bad as it was in 1995-96”. Paper prices that were agreed earlier in the year have also been revised upwards in some cases. The spike in demand comes at a time when millions of tonnes of commercial and publication paper making capacity has been taken out of the market, or converted to packaging grades. Pulp prices have also increased sharply .