Plain Lab · notebook
Squared Notebook 5 mm
A5 squared grid at 5.0 millimetres, thirty-six rows to the page, drawn as vector geometry rather than a bitmap.
Specification
- Trim
- 148 × 210 mm · 5.827 × 8.268 in
- Pages
- 140
- Leaves
- 70
- Sheets
- 35
- Signatures
- 7 × 20pp
- Spine
- 8.01 mm
- Paper
- white
- Ruling
- graph
- Ruling pitch
- 5.00 mm · 14.17 pt
- Rows per page
- 36
Thirty-six rows, five millimetres apart in both directions, printed the same way on every page: that is the specification of this book, and on a page sold for its ruling it is the fact actually worth stating. Most listings for a squared notebook say the words 'graph paper' and stop, leaving the pitch to arrive with the parcel.
The line is drawn, not tiled. A grid built from a repeated bitmap softens at the edge the moment a scan is enlarged past its own resolution; a grid built from vector lines has no fixed resolution to run out of, so it prints as cleanly at twice the size as it does here. One hundred and thirty-two pages carry the grid, unbroken by a divider.
The grid does not know if the number written in one of its boxes is correct. It only keeps the columns lined up while somebody checks.
What is inside
- Grid
- 132pp
- One continuous run of 5 mm squared ruling, drawn as vector lines so it holds its edge at any zoom.
- Reference
- 8pp
- Owner details, unit conversions computed from definitions, and the pen test leaf.
The film
Page by page
A vertical film from our own bench — this page contacts nobody's server to play it, and downloads nothing until you press play.
Real pages
Made at the Hibrkraft bindery, Bogor · about the maker
Books that sit alongside it
- Squared Insert 5 mmSame ruling, other trimgraph at 5.0 mm: 36 lines at a5 against 30 at 5x7
- Squared Notebook 4 mmA finer pitch5.0 mm to 4.0 mm
Questions
What is the exact grid spacing?
5.0 millimetres, measured line to line, in both directions.
How many rows fit a page?
Thirty-six, at that pitch.
How big is it?
A5, 148 x 210 mm, 140 pages, 8.01 mm across the spine.
Is the grid printed as a bitmap image?
No. Every line is drawn in the page's own geometry, so it stays sharp at any zoom rather than softening like a tiled scan.
Is it dated?
No.
Our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws after it all this train of cities and institutions.
