Small, quad-ruled notebook for someone with tiny handwriting

February 1, 2014 11:17 PM

I'm looking for a smallish notebook of entirely quad-ruled (graph) paper. Complication: I'd like the lines to be spaced quite close, at 0.1 in. or 3 mm. I've found plenty of notebooks with 0.25 in. grids, but at 0.1 in. I'm having a hard time even finding pads. Other things I would really like (but aren't deal-breakers like grid size is): hardcover, 70+ pages, not wider than 4 in. Has anyone here gone looking for something like this before? Any recommendations?
posted by aw_yiss to Shopping (11 answers total)

I'm finding hits when I google "graph paper notebook 1/10 inch" (without the quotes). Here's one example of just paper sheets.

I think maybe you need to remove the "quad-ruled" part if you're trying to search. That term means 1/4" squares, as in quad = 4, so it's 4 to an inch. I'll post back if I find some term that's specific for 1/10" squares, as I intend to keep looking now. (Have a kid who loves drawing on graph paper. 1/10" squares would go over VERY well.)
posted by stormyteal at 11:30 PM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

They're slim and softcovered, but the Kokuyo Campus Design Notebooks have 3mm grids.
posted by escapepod at 11:32 PM on February 1, 2014

(Sorry, the black is sold out but they're still available in red and yellow.)
posted by escapepod at 11:38 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Whitelines graphs are 5mm, so it's between your ideal of 3mm and the standard .25in, but they are so awesome in general that maybe it will compensate. The pages are pale gray and the grid lines are white, which makes your writing or drawing a million times more clear.
posted by donajo at 11:40 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Ah, I think these are. Choices include "10 divisions" and "8 divisions", which would be .125".

If you can't find what you're looking for in a notebook, it'd be possible to custom-make them fairly inexpensively as spiral-bound. Buy the paper, take it to a UPS store or similar, have them cut and spiral-bind it to your specifications.
posted by stormyteal at 11:46 PM on February 1, 2014

Best answer: Seconding Whitelines. This one has 3mm squares.
posted by whoiam at 12:06 AM on February 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you get a chance, also look in one of the Kinokuniya bookstores - they have quad-ruled notebooks like I've never seen. In the US they have stores in NYC, Chicago, SF, San Jose, LA, Costa Mesa, Seattle, and Portland. There is online ordering as well.
posted by jardinier at 12:15 AM on February 2, 2014

Have you looked at Rhodia? I believe their gridded notebooks use a 5mm x 5mm spacing.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:59 AM on February 2, 2014

Midori has a quad ruled A5 journal with tiny spacing. I bought it at Kinokuniya in SF and have seen the same one at Mai Do. I cannot find it online, though.
posted by BabeTheBlueOX at 9:05 AM on February 2, 2014

Work-around:

Get a blank notebook, with normal journal pages, nothing extra-thick or high GSM, and print yourself a page with line/graph/dot template at your preferred width, to sit behind the page as a template.
You can see the lines through the page, like it's tracing paper.

I used to have a couple of different template pages I'd keep in the back pocket of my journal, for writing with.
One was lines, the other was dots, as I preferred using 'corner dots' rather than lines for graph paper.
posted by Elysum at 7:16 PM on February 2, 2014

Response by poster: After looking at several stores in the area, I finally just bought a pad of paper I like and got it cut and velobound at a Kinko's per stormyteal's suggestion. Thanks to everyone who gave recommendations.
posted by aw_yiss at 7:59 PM on February 15, 2014