Paper and templates for printing or an e-ink tablet

A bullet journal wants dots, a maths class wants 5 mm squares, a choir wants staves, and an e-ink tablet wants a page template at its own pixel size. Shop-bought pads rarely match, and templates from the web are often the wrong size. These tools draw the page to your measurements in your browser and save it as a PDF, SVG or PNG; nothing is uploaded.

1. Choose the kind and the size

Open Printable Paper. Kind has lined, a yellow legal pad, squared (graph), dot grid, isometric, hexagons, a music staff, Cornell notes and handwriting lines. Size has paper sizes from A3 to US Tabloid, the pixel sizes of some e-ink tablets, and your own: Custom: width and height, or Custom screen: pixels and density. Turned switches between portrait and landscape.

Choosing a kind puts in its usual Spacing, so change the spacing after choosing it. The numbers are in millimetres; set Lengths in to inches if you work in those.

2. Set the spacing so it suits the job

• Graph paper: Spacing 5 for 5 mm squares, and Heavier line every 5 so every fifth line is stronger and you can count 25 mm at a glance.
• Dot grid: the same spacing; dots stay out of the way of handwriting better than lines.
• Lined: 8 is a comfortable line for most handwriting, and a smaller number gives a narrower rule. Set Header space for a title area, and tick Margin line for a vertical rule.
• Cornell notes: Cue column and Summary box set the two areas that give it its shape.
• Music: Staves is how many fit on the page, with the Gap between them.

Line weight, Paper colour and Line colour change how it looks. For printing, White paper with Pale blue or Grey lines keeps the rules from competing with what you write.

3. Print it

Set Pages in the PDF to the number you want and choose Save PDF: every page is the same, drawn as lines, so it prints sharp at any size. If you’re printing on coloured paper, tick Paper colour on screen only (not in the PDF) so the PDF doesn’t also print a tint.

Printers shift pages a little, and some scale to fit by default. Print one page at Actual size (not “fit to page”) and measure it with a ruler before printing fifty.

4. Make a template for an e-ink tablet

Under Size, the tablet group has the pixel sizes the makers publish for some Supernote, reMarkable, Kindle Scribe and BOOX models; pick yours, or use Custom screen: pixels and density with your device’s figures. The list is only a guide to what a size fits, and models and software change, so check the figures in your device’s manual. The tool isn’t connected to any of the makers.

Choose Save PNG for exactly the screen’s pixels, or Save PDF to import as a document. A Supernote reads its templates from a folder named MyStyle; other devices let you import a PDF or PNG as a notebook or template. Check how yours does it. Pale lines can look faint on a greyscale screen, so choose Medium or Bold for Line weight, or Black for Line colour.

5. Combine different kinds into one notebook

A planner might want a month of dots, then lined pages, then a page of graph paper. Make each as a PDF and choose them all in PDF Pages, put them in order with ↑ and ↓, and choose Save as one PDF. To repeat a page, list it twice in Pages to keep, in order: 1, 1, 1, 2-5 gives three copies of page 1 and then pages 2 to 5.

6. Print a pocket notebook or a booklet

For a small notebook, make the paper at A5 and open the PDF in PDF Pages. Set Pages to a sheet to Booklet, to fold in half and Sheet size to A4 (or US Letter, which shrinks the pages a little), and save. The pages are put two to a side in the order that, printed on both sides with flip on short edge and folded in the middle, reads front to back; blank pages are added to make a multiple of four. Staple along the fold, or stack a few folded sheets and sew them. Two side by side or Four instead put pages on one side of the sheet to cut apart, for index cards or a pad.

Print the first sheet and check the pages line up back to front before printing the rest: printers differ in which edge they flip on.

7. If your device wants a different file

Some devices only take JPEG or a PNG of a certain size. Open the saved PNG in Image Convert / Resize and choose the format under Save as; for a tablet, don’t use Width or Height to resize it, since a template that isn’t the exact screen size may be stretched or cropped. Make the paper again at the right size instead.