Dot Grid Paper
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Dot grid paper
Dots instead of lines, so the grid disappears once you have drawn on it.
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Ruled sheets at the standard sizes, each one a single page. The measurement is printed at the foot, so a reprint can be checked against a ruler.
5 mm dot grid paper, full page5 mm between dots, about 8 mm from the sidesDownload PDF ↓
5 mm dot grid paper5 mm between dotsDownload PDF ↓
1 cm dot grid paper10 mm between dotsDownload PDF ↓
1/4 inch dot grid paper6.35 mm between dotsDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
A dot grid does the job of graph paper without the paper looking like graph paper afterwards. The dots give you alignment while you are drawing and then recede behind whatever you put on top, which is why bullet journals settled on them.
Five millimeters is the standard for journaling and the one most notebooks use. One centimeter suits sketching and layout, where you want a guide rather than a ruler. Quarter inch sits between them and matches most American notebooks.
The dots print small and light on purpose, large enough to line a pencil up against, small enough that they are not marks you have to draw around. The spacing between them is exact, so a box drawn five dots wide on the 5 mm sheet measures 2 cm across, and five dots wide on the 1 cm sheet measures 4 cm.
Each ready-made sheet is one US Letter page carrying only the dots and, in small gray type at the foot, its spacing, so a reprint can be checked against a ruler. The 5 mm spacing comes twice: inside the usual margins, 37 dots across and 49 down, and as the full page sheet shown first, 41 across and 53 down, its outermost dots about 8 mm from the sides of the paper. The maker on this page offers the same three dot spacings and no others, but can switch the ruling to squares, lines, isometric, hexagons or a coordinate plane.
Planning a bullet journal spread on the 5 mm dot grid sheet
The standard 5 mm dot grid sheet gives a bullet journal page of 37 dots across and 49 down, which is 36 spaces by 48: room for a monthly log at one line per day with 17 lines to spare for a heading and notes. A habit tracker with one column per day uses 31 of the 36 spaces across and leaves 25 mm at the side for the names of the habits. The full page 5 mm sheet is 40 spaces by 52, which leaves 45 mm beside the same tracker and 21 lines under the log. The quarter inch sheet is 28 spaces by 38 and the 1 cm sheet 18 by 24, too few for a column per day across the page, but generous for a weekly spread, a hand-lettered title or a sketch that needs room.
There are 1,813 dots on the standard 5 mm sheet, 2,173 on the full page one, 1,131 on the quarter inch and 475 on the 1 cm, each printed in a medium gray and about 0.4 mm across, so a line ruled from dot to dot looks deliberate while the unused dots fade into the page. The outermost dots on the two standard metric sheets are exactly 18 cm apart across and 24 cm apart down, on the full page sheet 20 cm by 26 cm, and on the quarter inch sheet exactly 7 inches by 9.5. Measure one of those before printing a stack, because a sheet that has been scaled to fit the printer looks right to the eye and only shows its error against a ruler.
Can dot grid paper be used like a geoboard in math lessons
Yes, the 1 cm dot grid sheet works as a paper geoboard, with 19 by 25 dots to join with a ruler into triangles, rectangles and other shapes whose corners all sit on dots. Because every corner is on the grid, area can be found without a formula: count the whole squares inside, pair up the half squares cut by a diagonal edge, or draw a rectangle around the shape and subtract the triangles at its corners. A square drawn on a slant, with each side running from a dot to the dot diagonally next to it, comes out at an area of 2 square units, a good result to set as a puzzle before showing why.
There is also a counting rule that works for any shape drawn this way, as long as its corners are on dots and its sides do not cross: count the dots inside it, add half the dots on its edges, and subtract one. A 3 by 2 rectangle has 2 dots inside and 10 on its edges, so 2 + 5 − 1 = 6, the same as 3 × 2. The slanted square above has 1 dot inside and 4 on its edges, giving 1 + 2 − 1 = 2. Testing the rule on shapes the class invents makes a solid investigation, and the 1 cm spacing leaves room to write the counts inside each shape.
Common questions
Why dots instead of lines?
Because a dot marks only the point where two grid lines would cross, which keeps the alignment while putting far less on the page: the 1,813 dots of the standard 5 mm sheet cover less than a tenth of the paper that the lines of a 5 mm square grid would. Diagonal strokes and lettering then sit on clear paper rather than across a mesh of lines.
Which spacing for a bullet journal?
Five millimeters, because a row of dots that close holds one line of ordinary handwriting and still leaves 48 rows down the page, or 52 on the full page sheet. If your writing runs large, the quarter inch sheet gives each line 6.35 mm, 1.35 mm more, at the cost of ten rows, 38 down the page against 48.
Can the dot grid be printed darker for photocopying?
Yes, the maker on this page has a rule weight setting with three steps, faint, normal and strong, and strong prints each dot darker and a little larger so it survives a photocopier. The ready-made sheets use the normal weight.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.