Buying Notebooks Online? Here's a Guide
A simple notebook has a lot of advantages over a tablet: it isn’t expensive! It's light, and gives you a tactile experience that styluses can't quite match. It will also inspire innovative thinking, increase your concentration, and help you stay sharp as you age. It's also still set to the correct app for taking notes. Pulling out a well-chosen single ruled notebook and a good pen demonstrates that the owner is refined and unaffected by whim.
But that doesn't make choosing a decent notebook any easier. Notebooks are similar to automobiles. Like your car of choice, the ideal notebook must be very different from someone else's, whose needs or line of work necessitates different criteria.
And notebooks are just as diverse as our automobiles: various sizes, shapes, and materials; various bindings, paper weights, line widths (or squares, or no lines at all); hard and soft cover; treated paper, untreated paper—and that's just on the inside. To suggest a single notebook to everyone is to suggest a notebook to no one.
Here are a few factors to consider:
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Size: Let's start with the scale. Notebook sizing is almost uniform, but not exactly, and varies depending on if you're looking at European or American sizing. A, B, and C series sizes, ranging from A0 to A10, B0 to B10, and C0 to C10, are the most common in Europe. They're kind of the same shape, but various sizes: the shorter the number, the larger the paper.
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Binding: Once you've decided on a size, you'll need to consider binding, which is the process of joining sheets of paper into a ruled notebook. There are many different types of bindings, and some are more common for specific notebook sizes. Pocket-sized notebooks, for example, are often bound with staples.
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Stitching: Stitched bindings can make a big difference if you’re someone who uses the notebook outdoors or in conditions where it may be damaged. Stitched books come with a combination of stitching and glue: This design is lightweight, allowing the notebook to lie flat and securely holding the pages in place. Another important distinction to make between notebooks is between soft and hard covers.
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Cover: While a hardcover notebook or a more flexible cover may be more sturdy and have a much more rigid surface for working on your lap or on the go, some individuals enjoy a softcover notebook or even a more elastic cover because it allows you to flip the notebook in two (rolling the cover back on itself to use up less room on your lap or desk)
With these factors, it’s easy to see how you can smartly buy a notebook online, before getting it home to journal in.