4 ms·

My favorite kind of graph paper is engineering paper. The grid is printed on the back, so when scanned it isn't visible. What it looks like in person: https://

• spike021 11y ago
  Is this how all engineering paper is (or pads)? Took a quick look on Amazon and only one had the same or similar pattern. What's a good brand?
  • lfowles 11y ago
    Yes, an easy way to tell is it will also be light green/yellow. I only have experience with Comet brand from the campus store. It used to be kind of hard to find engineering paper at a decent price online, so I just stock up whenever I visit my alma mater. ~$20 for 500 sheets.
  • shas3 11y ago
    Rhodia makes some great paper. In my experience, better even than the more famous Moleskine.
    • Aloha 11y ago
      Rhodia is much better paper than moleskine.
  • niels_olson 11y ago
    I have a few sheets of K&E from my grandfather's, they're fantastic. I'm thinking about framing one. My go-to is Staedtler, simply because it's available. My dad still uses a lot of National. I've also used Ampad, which I find to be a little thin, and the fibers are course: tends to gouge.
    • FireBeyond 11y ago
      I used to use the Staedtler, for that reason. Is very nice. But the Rhodia pads, as mentioned below, are exquisite.
      • niels_olson 11y ago
        I'm unclear. I use bound Leuchtturm1917 books for note taking these days, and I used to use moleskine. I have a number of others, including a Rhodia and white lines. I am not aware of Rhodia selling what I would call an engineer's pad. Graph paper, yes. Engineer's pad, no. Can you cite a link?
        • FireBeyond 11y ago
          I apologize. I don't think I've seen an Engineer's Pad from Rhoda, for sure. I use one of the gridded variations.
    • couchand 11y ago
      I fucking love Hacker News. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
  • djKianoosh 11y ago
    The one he's using above in the images looks like the one from National Brand [1]. I recognize it because I use it to this day for all my work. Ever since engineering classes at RPI, it just helps organize my writing/sketching and for subsequent filing/reviewing. Highly recommend :) 1. National Brand Computation Pad, Plain and 5 X 5 Quad On Back, Green Paper, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 200 Sheets (42389) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017TMB64/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_pbRYvbTX0TNX6 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0017TMB64/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_pbRYvbT...
• joeyo 11y ago
  Dot grids are nice too. They're a good compromise between blank pages and graph paper: http://rhodiapads.com/collections_dot_everything.php http://rhodiapads.com/collections_dot_everything.php
• derefr 11y ago
  > so when scanned it isn't visible I don't much see the point, these days; presuming you work in black, you can filter out the grids and guides of any light color (green, blue, etc.) just by scanning in color, picking out a color-curve that exists in black but not in the guides (e.g. red) and turning off the others. Before digital image editing, some scanners and cameras were set up to automatically perform an equivalent to these steps by using a lens to filter out the blue channel, thus allowing graphic designers to sketch in blue "non-repro" pencil, ink on top of their sketch, and then have the sketch-lines disappear in the scan. But today, any random color can be your "non-repro" color if you have a copy of Photoshop Elements.
  • malnourish 11y ago
    The point is so people don't have to do all that work. Why do in software what you can do in hardware?
    • Retra 11y ago
      Because it's configurable. What if you want the lines to appear?
      • lfowles 11y ago
        Then you use normal graph paper!
        • niels_olson 11y ago
          This reminds me of the Steve Jobs quote about sharing music without all of the Zune's software shinanigans to share a song for three plays > It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected
• analog31 11y ago
  As a college freshman, my physics professor took me aside and said that I'd never pass the course unless I could read my own handwriting. He pointed to several mistakes in my work that were obvious transcription errors from one line to the next. He sent me to the college bookstore with a shopping list that included a pad of engineering paper and some mechanical pencils. I'm sure that the psychological motivation was as important as the actual hardware, but my handwriting and my grades did improve after that.
• couchand 11y ago
  I'm a dedicated engineering pad user myself, but I've never felt the need to scan the results, so I can't speak to that. The reason I use it is that the grid just doesn't overwhelm the content in the way that it is with standard graph paper. Grid lines should always be muted -- the principle applies to graph paper as much as it does to charts. Also you didn't mention it, but engineering pads also have the ten row grouping mentioned in the article.