Germany's colonial experience in the Pacific was both relatively short (1884-1914) and also quite dispersed. In addition to administrative staff and office, a well-functioning colonial administration also required the means to propagate and document its administrative regulations and decisions. This article examines how the administrative offices in German Samoa and German New Guinea went about their official printing needs. In the Samoa case, the Germans 'inherited' a well-established printing environment, facilitated by newspapers. Here the official publications of the colonial government were merely additional print-jobs. In German New Guinea, however, no such infrastructure pre-existed and the German administration had to start its own press. Over time, the government gazette added no official sections and, had World War I not intervened, was on track to became a local newspaper.