The Whitelines A4 graph paper notebook

The Whitelines brand of notebooks offer a unique design that I have not seen with other notebooks or stationery in general.  The Whitelines paper itself has a very soft gray color to it, and the lines are actually pure white, so it is basically the opposite of any white paper that you may have seen that has gray lines.   There are a lot of other unique things about the Whitelines notebook (via Amazon.com) with graph paper, so let me get into today’s new office supply review and explain.

The back cover of a Whitelines notebook explaining its unique characteristcs.

The back cover of each Whitelines notebook has a short summary explaining the benefits and unique features that these notebooks posses.  As I mentioned before, the lines (whether ruled or graph paper, which they refer to as “squared”) on this paper are actually white, hence the name Whitelines.  The stated reason given for the benefit of the white lines on the gray background is that it is much more pleasant and easy on the eyes.  In addition to being easy on your eyes, one of the more interesting features is that when you copy, scan, or fax with this paper, the lines vanish, and the paper appears to have no lines or graph marks at all…I’ve got samples photos a little further along in this notebook review.  The last interesting thing described on the Whitelines notebook is that each one has its carbon footprint displayed right on the front.  There is some controversy over how carbon footprints are measured, but Im always in favor of having as much info out there as possible, as long as people take the time to understand what it actually means and use it properly.  One quick thing that is not explicitly spelled out, but is still highly noticeable is the vibrant orange on white design of the cover which I really like.

Whitelines notebook writing samples with the lines visible….for now.  The lines are visible because I scanned the page as a photo and not as a document.

Above you can see the multiple pens that I decided to try out in my new Whitelines Graph Paper Notebook.  For the most part it seems as if the gel based pens did not do quite as well on the paper, as the others such as the fountain pens, the Sharpie pen, and the Pentel Slicci.  All of the pens wrote very well on this paper, there was no scratchy feeling, and the pen tips and nibs cascaded over the paper effortlessly.  The only issues were with the dry times, which usually is not a problem for me, but for any left handed writers out there, it is something to be aware of.  For the most part, none of these pens showed significant bleed on the other side of the paper, only the Uniball Vision Elite and the Lamy Safari with the Private Reserve ink bled through to a point that I thought wouldnt be acceptable.  I think something else that you should be aware of with the Whitelines Graph Paper Notebook is that at the bottom center there is a Whitelines logo that takes up 6 horizontal cubes and 2 vertical cubes, it is not huge, and it is not even that noticeable…also, just like the other lines it vanishes when scanned, copied, or faxed.

Here is the Whitelines notebook scanned as a copy instead of as a photo, and no lines.

The last photo above shows the same writing sample from before, but this time I changed the settings on my scanner from “photo” to “copy” and it completely eliminated the graph paper pattern.  I dont know if I am just easily impressed, but this seems like a very cool feature of this paper.  If you do any kind of graphs, diagrams, or charting, I feel like this would allow you to make some high quality copies, or even scan it to your computer and allow you to do additional editing without the grid or lines getting in the way.

I am really pleased with these Whitelines Graph Paper Notebook, the writing experience is very smooth, the quality seems to be pretty solid, and the multiple innovative ideas that Whitelines packed into something as simple as a notebook are pretty darn impressive.  I do feel that the claim about the grey on white color contrast is mostly true, and I only say “mostly” because it did take a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to this different look.  After those few seconds I did come to realize that I was not staring at a BRIGHT white sheet of paper, which did seem a little easier on my eyes.   Amazon.com has various sizes and formats of the Whitelines notebooks so you can head over there and check them out next time you order something from them.

©2017, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.