The benefits of high performance retention systems have been long recognized by the paper maker. The inter-relation between chemical retention and drainage and their effect on paper production efficiency and paper quality is significant. The subject of this paper is a summary of recent studies comparing three microparticle programs made under highly controlled pilot and commercial paper machine conditions. The results presented in this paper suggest that, in addition to improvements in machine operation, the retention, drainage and formation program can have a marked influence on the paper quality. Improvement of the topographical characteristics of the base paper was observed when the microparticle was a colloidal borosilicate inorganic oxide.