Abstract: In order to analyze the quality consistency of cigarette paper, thermal analyses were performed on paper samples within and among batches from three cigarette paper factories. The thermal spectroscopic features were analyzed by NRMSE (normalized root mean squared error) to quantitatively evaluate the pyrolysis and combustion differences of the cigarette papers. The factors that could cause the fluctuations in paper quality were investigated. The results showed that:1) The repeatability of the thermal analysis suggested that the differences in the pyrolysis peak, oxidation peak and calcium carbonate decomposition peak were all less than 4%, which indicated that this method met the requirement for data quality analysis. 2) There were three forms of cigarette paper quality fluctuations:a pyrolysis peak difference >10%, an oxidation peak difference >20%, and a calcium carbonate decomposition peak difference >15%. 3) Through analyzing the influences of conventional paper quality indexes in relation to the patterns of thermal spectra, the paper quality indexes in the order of influence degree on the quality fluctuation were:burn additive content > potassium/sodium ratio > ash content. 4) The conventional paper quality indexes in this study were all within the designed ranges, while the influencing patterns of the different pulp ratios on the thermal analysis spectra were consistent with the quality fluctuation patterns of cigarette paper, therefore the main reason for the fluctuation of paper quality in this study was attributed to uneven mixing of hardwood and softwood fiber during production.