How to print your own graph paper

Squared, dotted, isometric or lined, at exactly the spacing you want, without buying a pad.

Print the paper you need rather than the nearest thing a shop sells — useful for homework, knitting charts, garden plans and bullet journals.

Step-by-step

1. Choose a type — squares, dots, isometric or lines.
2. Set the spacing.
3. Print, making sure scaling is off.

Which type

• Squares — general maths, graphs, plans. 5 mm is the usual school size.
• Dots — the grid guides without dominating the page. Popular for journals and sketching.
• Isometric — triangular grid for drawing three-dimensional objects at a consistent angle.
• Lines — ruled paper at whatever spacing suits the handwriting.

Turn off print scaling

This is the one thing that matters. If your printer scales to fit the page, your 5 mm squares will not be 5 mm, and anything measured off them will be wrong. Set scaling to 100% or "actual size" — the option is usually in the print dialogue and often defaults to shrinking.

Check with a ruler on the first sheet before printing thirty.

Paper size

A4 and Letter differ in both dimensions, so a grid laid out for one leaves an odd margin on the other. Choose the size you are actually printing on.

Which grid, and what it is for

Square is the default and the right choice for anything with two axes. Dot grid gives the same positioning with far less visual noise, which is why it suits drawings and layouts where the grid should guide rather than appear in the finished thing. Isometric rules three sets of lines at sixty degrees to each other, letting you draw a convincing three-dimensional object without any perspective construction — it is the paper behind decades of technical sketching and, more recently, a great deal of game art.

Hexagonal exists mostly for tabletop maps, where a hex has the useful property that all six neighbours are the same distance away, unlike a square where the diagonals are further. Logarithmic spaces its rules by decade so that exponential data plots as a straight line, which is the only sane way to hand-plot something that spans several orders of magnitude.

Print at actual size, or the squares are the wrong size

This is the mistake that spoils an otherwise perfect sheet. Print dialogues default to "fit to page" or "shrink oversized pages", both of which scale the document slightly to accommodate the printer's unprintable margin. The grid still looks correct — but a 5 mm grid comes out at about 4.8 mm, and anything you measure off it is wrong by a few per cent.

Set the scale to 100%, "actual size", or "none", depending on what your dialogue calls it. Then check it once with a ruler across ten squares rather than one, because a small error is invisible over a single square and obvious over ten. Also make sure the paper size matches the sheet: printing an A4 layout onto US Letter, or the reverse, triggers exactly the scaling you have just turned off.

Frequently asked questions

Will the squares be the right size?

Only if print scaling is off. Set it to 100% or actual size, and check the first sheet with a ruler before printing a stack.

What spacing is standard for school work?

5 mm squares is the usual size for exercise books, with 10 mm for younger children.

What is isometric paper for?

Drawing three-dimensional objects at consistent angles. The triangular grid keeps edges parallel without needing to construct a perspective.