PDF can guarantee precise control over printed output wrt dimensions. I have hoped to find this with modern HTML and CSS but it still seems a little variable across browsers, at least when fonts are involved.
I was training persian letters yesterday and actually found it more difficult on dotted paper than on lined paper. So maybe the answer is that schools start with lined paper, and then everyone sticks with it? Also I guess school children are the primary buyers of lined paper?
Dotted paper is the absolute best by far, followed by grid squares. Everything else feels like an enormous downgrade to me now that I have got used to having dots.
Back in the day, you had to beg the parent you had that had access to a photocopier at work to make copies for you from your special best 'reserved for replication' original, because if you used your last one you couldn't make more.
I had to learn a little about PDF generation to write and this and that translated into a project which gave me enough money to keep me afloat during an especially dry period during covid.
I just saw that a very typical sheet used a lot in Germany is missing in your awesome offering: Millimeterpapier, i.e. a 1mm grid with slighty thicker lines every 10 mm, in a reddish hue, as can bee seen here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millimeterpapier - but from there I noticed that on Wikipedia there is already a ton of these PDFs as samples!
It’s funny how paper patterns vary with geography. Across the Baltic Sea, in Sweden, you can certainly find "millimeterpapper", as we call it, but it’s a bit of a speciality item, and I have rarely, if ever, seen anyone actually use it. Especially now, that all graphs are done on a computer anyway.
On that subject, I’m fascinated by the many special-purpose more-or-less-grid papers there are out there. Yet, whenever I see photos of these papers in use, the user does not seem to have used it for its intended purpose, but simply as a random piece of paper. For example, what is the motivation for the "engineer" paper on this site?
I like this a lot. Curiously, it's useless for what I use graph paper for.
I'll describe my idealized graph paper -- similar to what I made myself in a drawing program, but with several improvements taken from browsing these and seeing things done better than I did:
- Coarse centimeter line grid
- Fine millimeter dot grid
- Optionally, a thicker line occasionally (e.g. every 4-5cm), or better yet, a cross-grid.
- A rectangle in the bottom right where I can place a label
Grid should go edge-to-edge (with a bit of bleed in the design).
I'm not saying that's anybody else's ideal. That's ideal for what I do. There is no "best," but there is "suitability to purpose" combined with "what one is used to."
I think the way to do this would be the same webapp, but where it's possible to overlay several of these on top of each other. Multiweight and multicolor should be a combination of a pair of single weight / single color.
The way to do a lot of this, by the way, is in PostScript programming.
Footnote: Reading more of the web site, this guy is clearly awesome.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 85.7 ms ] threadI had to learn a little about PDF generation to write and this and that translated into a project which gave me enough money to keep me afloat during an especially dry period during covid.
(linked from here: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/faq.html)
Just change the values to 0.1 cm.
On that subject, I’m fascinated by the many special-purpose more-or-less-grid papers there are out there. Yet, whenever I see photos of these papers in use, the user does not seem to have used it for its intended purpose, but simply as a random piece of paper. For example, what is the motivation for the "engineer" paper on this site?
I'll describe my idealized graph paper -- similar to what I made myself in a drawing program, but with several improvements taken from browsing these and seeing things done better than I did:
- Coarse centimeter line grid
- Fine millimeter dot grid
- Optionally, a thicker line occasionally (e.g. every 4-5cm), or better yet, a cross-grid.
- A rectangle in the bottom right where I can place a label
Grid should go edge-to-edge (with a bit of bleed in the design).
I'm not saying that's anybody else's ideal. That's ideal for what I do. There is no "best," but there is "suitability to purpose" combined with "what one is used to."
I think the way to do this would be the same webapp, but where it's possible to overlay several of these on top of each other. Multiweight and multicolor should be a combination of a pair of single weight / single color.
The way to do a lot of this, by the way, is in PostScript programming.
Footnote: Reading more of the web site, this guy is clearly awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7KU26mnX-I
I'm going to guess you're really into pens. Not an unhealthy amount... but more than most.
It's like the web page sees into my mind!
[0] https://incompetech.com/graphpaper/squaredots/