How You Like Your Journal Lined

[jk0592]

I prefer unlined pages. I usually print two guide sheets, one for the left page and one for the right page, using the "Van de Graf Canon", and put a "reasonable" number of thick black lines inside the margins obtained by the Canon.

I write page numbers on top of the pages, left side for left page, right side for right page.

[wallylynn]

Oh my gosh! I just went to Excel and tinkered around and now there's a nice dotty page coming out of my printer—in teal, of course. Hardly took any time at all. Thanks, folks!

If you're OCD like me, you can use a typesetting program because 5mm is not the same as 0.20 inches. I used Scribus http://www.scribus.net for my template. You can be sure all your dots are centered with the accurate spacing (5mm < 0.2 in < 6mm < 0.25in, etc), change the size and color and stuff.

 

The secret is Edit-MultipleDuplicate. Place your corner dot, duplicate horizontal, select them and duplicate vertical. 1,2,3. Once you get the hang of it, it's much easier and more accurate than excel, OOo Draw, etc.

 

I've attached the template I designed. In all, an hour to learn and make. That's after a day of printing, pondering, tweaking...

journal.pdf

[notgiven]

Oh my gosh! I just went to Excel and tinkered around and now there's a nice dotty page coming out of my printer—in teal, of course. Hardly took any time at all. Thanks, folks!

If you're OCD like me, you can use a typesetting program because 5mm is not the same as 0.20 inches. I used Scribus http://www.scribus.net for my template. You can be sure all your dots are centered with the accurate spacing (5mm < 0.2 in < 6mm < 0.25in, etc), change the size and color and stuff.

 

The secret is Edit-MultipleDuplicate. Place your corner dot, duplicate horizontal, select them and duplicate vertical. 1,2,3. Once you get the hang of it, it's much easier and more accurate than excel, OOo Draw, etc.

 

I've attached the template I designed. In all, an hour to learn and make. That's after a day of printing, pondering, tweaking...

journal.pdf

 

Scribus looks great, and open source too!

 

Love your template. Is there a reason that you alternate dotted and solid line in your left side of the lined page?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Another who prefers unlined. Lined is too constrictive - I sketch sometimes, and my handwriting changes with my mood - sometimes small, sometimes large, sometimes trying to be unobtrusive, sometimes flamboyant. Lines just get in the way for me.

 

Plus there is something infinitely more exciting (for me) about starting a new journal that has blank pages rather than one with lined paper. I'm not sure why that is (maybe I'm unconsciously linking lines back to school notebooks, and office stationery).

[wallylynn]

Scribus looks great, and open source too!

 

Love your template. Is there a reason that you alternate dotted and solid line in your left side of the lined page?

Thanks for the compliment. I don't remember the reason anymore. Probably because

a. I wanted to try lined vs. dotted and this was nicer than half and half.

b. I was planning on penmanship practice with the dotted as a midpoint guide. Which hasn't happened.

[AlecG]

Another who prefers unlined. Lined is too constrictive - I sketch sometimes, and my handwriting changes with my mood - sometimes small, sometimes large, sometimes trying to be unobtrusive, sometimes flamboyant. Lines just get in the way for me.

 

That part about my wryting style, size etc is changing with my mood is true for me as well. Sometimes the writing changes my mood, it often calmes me, and that to is reflected in my writing.

[thegoose]

I'm an "outside of the box" type of person so I prefer a blank page. I really abhor the lines!

[Mr.Wote]

When using lined paper I vastly prefer a very light grey or brown line, spaced at 5 or 6mm. I have been using "Ritmo" A4 composition books from Daiso lately, which are lovely and the paper is decent, but the spacing of the lines is a bit wide for my liking. I enjoy having a narrow blank border on the outside of the page and a lined margin, and a simple heading line (for dating and title and page number) is an awesome thing - I tend to write scenes on a couple pages, then cut them out and hole-punch for a binder so I can rearrange easily.

 

For general use I like the same dimensions but with a super-thin line in a 5mm grid. I like the whitelines grid-paper but it tends to feather with very wet inks, so I've been looking for something better. Looking forward to the new Rhodia Webnotebooks for grid and dot ruling, I might play around with the dots and see how I like it.

[notgiven]

When using lined paper I vastly prefer a very light grey or brown line, spaced at 5 or 6mm. I have been using "Ritmo" A4 composition books from Daiso lately, which are lovely and the paper is decent, but the spacing of the lines is a bit wide for my liking. I enjoy having a narrow blank border on the outside of the page and a lined margin, and a simple heading line (for dating and title and page number) is an awesome thing - I tend to write scenes on a couple pages, then cut them out and hole-punch for a binder so I can rearrange easily.

 

For general use I like the same dimensions but with a super-thin line in a 5mm grid. I like the whitelines grid-paper but it tends to feather with very wet inks, so I've been looking for something better. Looking forward to the new Rhodia Webnotebooks for grid and dot ruling, I might play around with the dots and see how I like it.

 

I also prefer light gray lines, because I mostly use blue ink, so the blue ink has no problem standing out in the gray lines. I found blue lines sometime distract the reader from the words if I use blue ink. 5 or 6 mm is definitely uncommon for Japanese notebook, because some of their characters take a lot of vertical space.

[dapv]

Will use most anything from time to time, but definitely prefer a 4-to-the-inch grid. I hope that doesn't mean I'm only a 2-d thinker. I better go draw another 3-d box.

[oakm]

I use this one (attached) I put together in openoffice / libreoffice Calc - just set the cells real small and put a "." in each square...then tweaked the font and grayness to light enough dots. I print and cut for my pocket journal and print full size for scratch paper and notes--the scratches go on the back of whatever printed stuff I'm recycling.

 

Thanks for the dot template. I will be trying it out today.

[oakm]

 

If you're OCD like me, you can use a typesetting program because 5mm is not the same as 0.20 inches. I used Scribus http://www.scribus.net for my template. You can be sure all your dots are centered with the accurate spacing (5mm < 0.2 in < 6mm < 0.25in, etc), change the size and color and stuff.

 

The secret is Edit-MultipleDuplicate. Place your corner dot, duplicate horizontal, select them and duplicate vertical. 1,2,3. Once you get the hang of it, it's much easier and more accurate than excel, OOo Draw, etc.

 

I've attached the template I designed. In all, an hour to learn and make. That's after a day of printing, pondering, tweaking...

journal.pdf

 

I really like your version. Thanks for sharing.