Dot Grid vs Lined Paper

Dot grid, lined and blank pages each push your handwriting into a different shape; paper weight decides which pens survive the page.

A 5 mm dot grid is the compromise ruling: the dots enforce alignment for date columns, weekday letters and trackers, yet vanish behind prose. Lined paper enforces line height but fights any layout that is not horizontal text; blank paper allows everything and guides nothing.

For a monthly log the difference is structural. Thirty-one rows and a seven-letter weekday column need vertical alignment, which dots supply and lines fight. Sketches and margin markers need freedom, which lines also fight. That is why the format is almost always drawn on dot grid.

Paper weight is measured in gsm and runs 52-120 in notebooks. The thin end, around 52-70 gsm, is crisp but prone to show-through. 80 gsm is the standard weight — ballpoints, pencils and fineliners are safe on it. 90 gsm is where fountain-pen ink stops bleeding to the other side.

Bleed-through is ink passing through the sheet; show-through, or ghosting, is ink merely visible from the reverse. Ghosting is cosmetic and common even at 90 gsm; bleed ruins the facing page and is the property that matters when you choose.

Practical pairing: dot grid at 80 gsm for a first notebook, dot grid at 90 gsm or heavier if a fountain pen is your daily writer, lined only if you will never draw a tracker, blank only for pure sketch journals. Row counts for each notebook size are in Notebook Sizes Compared; the setup that uses the grid is in How to Set Up a Monthly Log.

• Dot grid, 5 mm — monthly logs, trackers, mixed writing and sketching
• Lined — long-form prose, no layouts
• Blank — sketching and mind maps, no alignment needs
• 80 gsm — ballpoint, fineliner, pencil
• 90 gsm and up — fountain pens and wet markers

Further reading

• Notebook Sizes Compared
• How to Set Up a Monthly Log