The first issue of Scientific Papers was published in 1939, and the journal was printed with some intervals until 1941. The preface to the journal stated that due to the necessity to improve the quality of higher education and the need to strengthen the research work of the departments, the journal was tasked with: first, promoting the development of research work of the departments; second, helping students to be engaged in scientific work through academic clubs; third, improving the teaching methods of the individual disciplines, and for this purpose it was necessary to publish articles both on the general methodology [teaching] and on the methodology of the individual disciplines; fourthly, providing an overview of some published works which mainly relate to the printing industry in the review and bibliography section.
Until the tenth anniversary of the Printing Institute in Kharkiv in 1941, the journal Printing Production wrote: "The scientific work of the Institute is reflected in its publishing activities. Seven volumes of its Scientific Papers were published during the existence of the institution (1939-1941). It is only to be wished that the Institute's further papers should be made exclusively of works of direct relevance to technology, economics and other matters of the printing industry." The first issue of the papers came out as the publication of Ukrainian Printing Institute, and the other six pre-war issues – as the publication of Kharkiv Printing Institute.
The publication of Scientific Papers of Ukrainian Printing Institute, interrupted by the Great Patriotic War, was resumed in Lviv in 1947. By 1962, when the journal stopped being printed again, eight volumes of papers had been published. The issues of 1950 and 1952 were published as materials of a scientific session of Ukrainian Printing Institute named after Ivan Fedorov. The twelfth volume of the journal was published in two parts. The issues of 1961 and 1962 were specialized, devoted to mechanical and mathematical studies (vol. XIII), the theory of printing presses (vol. XIV) and the economics of printing production (vol. XV).
After almost a forty-year interval in 1999, the publication of Scientific Papers was resumed by Ukrainian Academy of Printing already. In the introduction to the journal, the editorial board emphasized that it "is intended to publish the results of theoretical and experimental research in the field of printing machine-building, printing technology and materials, information technology and automation of printing production, book science, publishing and book trade organization, economics and printing organization, natural and social sciences and humanities”.
If at first the journal outlined the scientific achievements of scientists of Ukrainian Academy of Printing, then gradually the geography expanded and the journal began to publish the authors from other organizations of Ukraine, and hence from abroad. The journal was published continuously in 1939-1941, after that the break caused by the war was forced, and subsequently it was published irregularly – in 1947; 1950; 1952; 1955; 1957; 1958; 1961 and 1962. Due to the reorganization of publishing activities of ministries, committees, agencies and organizations, the journal was not published in the coming years. Since 1999, the journal has been published continuously. From the first to the seventh, the eleventh, the first part of the twelfth and the fourteenth issues of the papers were published in Russian, from the eighth to the tenth, part two of the twelfth, the thirteenth, the fifteenth and all subsequent issues were published in Ukrainian.
As a result of the searching work in the libraries of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, the compilers were able to find six of the seven pre-war issues of Scientific Papers (being not fortunate enough to find only the sixth issue).