tIn the last few years, interest and demand of high bright paper have forced paper manufacturers tothink new ways to improve brightness and whiteness of coated paper. Pigment coating is widely used toenhance the optical properties such as brightness, whiteness, and gloss of paper and paperboard. Theseoptical properties are the most important for end user and also determine the final cost of coated paper.Calcium sulphate has inherent better optical properties compared to other conventional pigments forexample ground calcium carbonate, precipitated calcium carbonate and kaolin clay. The present studywas carried out with an aim to synthesize calcium sulphate using waste procured from phosphoric acidindustry and to study its impact on the rheology of coating color as well as optical properties of coatedpaper. Addition of calcium sulphate improved the water retention property of coating color which canbe helpful for improving the machine runnability. The results also revealed that calcium sulphate canbe used as a pigment to produce coated paper of high brightness and whiteness. The brightness andwhiteness of the coated paper were improved 4 and 15 points, respectively by using 50 parts of calciumsulphate as a pigment replacing clay from the coating formulation. The surface strength in terms of IGTpick value of coated sheets was found significantly comparable using calcium sulphate as pigment. Theprint gloss results were observed analogous with matt grade coated paper.