DIY Dot Grid Paper

[MissChief]

I've tried printing my own paper. Finding the forms or PDFs was never the problem. I just can't get satisfactory results.

 

LASER printer -- the toner is deposited ON the paper. If you draw a vertical line, you can feel the nib going across every horizontal line. Not dissimilar to driving through our parking lot and ignoring the speed bumps. Even a BIC ballpoint is sensitive enough to transmit the raised lines.

 

INKJET printer -- the paper form is more satisfactory, but the result isn't very permanent, as my hands seem to generate enough moisture to blur the ink, which is not permanent. Also, I've never owned an inkjet that wasn't pitifully slow.

 

Anybody else running into this? Or better yet, does anybody else have any solutions?

 

I know this is an old thread but it may be informative to someone else who hasn't read it. I know what Zarble means about laser printers with toner ON the paper; that's also the problem with a lot of photocopiers. Inkjets, as Zarble writes, can bleed or blur with moisture. About the only way to avoid that is to have it printed by a print shop... on a press. The ink that print shops use is a permanent ink that will not smear with moisture and soaks into the paper rather than sitting ON the paper.

[wikeh2004]

It seems to me that the DIY planner set of pages is leaner and more useful than it used to be. I could be wrong, but if you downloaded it before and it was unwieldy, you might want to try it again.

 

DIY Planner Pages

 

This is the horizontal 2-up version for Classic binders. It includes dot pages. I love using the different forms.

 

Unfortunately, diyplanner.com seems to be offline. Not sure if this is just temporary, or a permanent absence. :-(

[wikeh2004]

 

Unfortunately, diyplanner.com seems to be offline. Not sure if this is just temporary, or a permanent absence. :-(

 

diyplanner.com is back online. Don't add the www in front. I guess that outage was temporary. Get UR templates while they're up!

Edited April 28, 2014 by wikeh2004

[Dell_Boy]

BUMP. I found this thread to be very useful! Good source for some practice drawing paper.

 

I also found, quite by accident, that Xerox Premium Multipurpose Paper from COSTCO works great with my pens and ink (Noodler's Black and Blue-Black). It is 96 brightness and 90 g/m2 (24 lb).

 

Some of my other paper products laying around my office are not so FP friendly!

 

Derek

[thudthwacker]

I saw this topic and was just coming here to sing the praises of Incompetech.com's custom dot-grid generator, but folks have already put up links to it. I'm just starting to try writing on dot grid, and at the very least it's a solution to the problem of laser printer toner coming up through the ink when you write. It also fixes the problem with line consistency in the final output (when using my own printer or one at work). I don't know if it's the quality of the PDF my workstation is generating or some aggravating interaction between the PDF, the thickness of the line I'm trying to print, and the resolution of the printer, but I always end up with lines of varying thickness.

 

I also just got a ream of HP Premium Choice Laserjet Paper (32 lb), so I think I may spend some time over the holiday break to see about cobbling together my own dot grid notebook. I wandered across this video a couple of weeks ago, and though I'm not what anyone would call a fine craftsman (or even a moderately competent craftsman), I think this is something I could pull off:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhd_2zu2D04

 

Alas, as the paper is US Letter size, the notebook I ended up with wouldn't fit properly into any of the wonderful A5 covers available.