A
calender is a series of hard pressure rollers used to form or smooth a sheet of material such as
paper or
plastic film. In a principal paper application, the calender is located at the end of a
papermaking process (on-line). Those that are used separately from the process (off-line) are also called
supercalenders. The purpose of a calender is to make the
paper smooth and glossy for
printing and
writing, as well as of a consistent thickness for
capacitors that use paper as their
dielectric membrane.