Zinc oxide (ZnO)-based pastes with tailored rheological properties have been developed for direct-write fabrication of thick-film varistor elements in highly integrated, multifunctional electroceramic devices. Such pastes exhibited pseudoplastic behavior with a low shear apparent viscosity of roughly 1 X 10(4) Pa.s. Upon aging, the pastes attained printable, steady-state viscosities of approximately 3 X 10(2) Pa.s at 10 s(-1). Square and rectangular elements were patterned on dense alumina substrates and sintered at varying temperatures between 800degrees and 1250degreesC. Varistor elements fired at 900degreesC exhibited nonlinearity coefficients (alpha = 30) that were equivalent to high-density (>95%) varistors formed by cold isostatic pressing at 100 MPa (15 ksi) of a similar chemically derived powder heat-treated under analogous conditions.