How Do I Keep The Lines Straight?

[sidthecat]

My handwriting has improved immensely since I switched to lined notebooks, but is there a method to keep baselines even on unlined paper?

 

Is it simply to keep a lined sheet under your sheet of expensive stationery? Or make very light pencil lines?

 

What does anyone else do?

[TheRealScubaSteve]

I print thick, bold lines in MS word as an undersheet. You can also use a plain sheet of paper on top as a guideline but it doesn't work as well since you have to keep it further down to avoid it catching your downstrokes like in g, y, etc. I find that as long as I start a few lines straight it's fairly easy to keep it going without a guide.

[sidthecat]

I'm glad to know it isn't some esoteric yogic technique, but a simple cheat. Huzzah!

[Sasha Royale]

I print thick, bold lines in MS word as an undersheet. You can also use a plain sheet of paper on top as a guideline but it doesn't work as well since you have to keep it further down to avoid it catching your downstrokes like in g, y, etc. I find that as long as I start a few lines straight it's fairly easy to keep it going without a guide.

 

I, too, use an undersheet. Sometimes, having the lines straight is not so important. Then, I don't.

Ask yourself : What if these lines of writing are not straight ?

 

Enjoy your time writing.

[Randal6393]

Undersheets, pencil in lines on your paper, use a guide sheet edge to help keep your lines straight. And practice, practice, practice. After concentrating on writing straight, some people have reported writing straighter. Of course, we aren't always sure we believe them.

 

Best of luck,

[Charles Rice]

I print thick, bold lines in MS word as an undersheet.

 

+1

[ac12]

I made guide sheet with different line spacing, then I put the guide sheet I selected below the writing paper.

If it is too hard to see the guide sheet through the writing paper, I put the guide sheet + writing paper on top of my light pad/box.

 

BTW, I am hopeless to write a straight/level line, so I have to use the guide sheet.

Edited September 4, 2015 by ac12

[Bookman]

My handwriting has improved immensely since I switched to lined notebooks, but is there a method to keep baselines even on unlined paper?

 

Is it simply to keep a lined sheet under your sheet of expensive stationery? Or make very light pencil lines?

 

What does anyone else do?

 

(A page from my journal, noting some headlines from today's NYT)

 

 

 

Here's what I do: I don't care whether my lines are straight. Who says they have to be straight? I do make a freehand effort to keep the first line straight-ish, but I never check it. On the next line I try to keep on a parallel path. If by chance the first one actually is straight, they'll all be straight. As often as not the lines slant downward from left to right by a few degrees. The ones in this photo slant upward. They always slant in the same direction, one way or the other, and as long as they do that I'm perfectly fine with it.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Bookman

[Paddler]

Don't focus your attention so tightly on the line you are writing. While writing the first line on a page, see both your writing and the top edge of the page. Then follow the first line while writing the second. It takes a little practice, expanding your attention like that. The tendency is to concentrate on writing well formed letters and ignoring everything else. You don't have to do that to write well.

[Knock_Kneed_Man]

I put two tiny little dots in pencil (one that uses a graphite that I know can be erased on my card stock easily - trial and error) for the first line and then after that I just try and make them match the one above. The trick is to not press too hard with the pencil so that you don't "dent" your nice stationary.

 

I am by NO means an expert, I just wrote a letter about 3 min ago and thought I would share with you what I did!

 

 

Best of luck to you, straight lines are not my thing either

 

 

 

[OCArt]

I am experimenting with making my own stationary in Photoshop. I have several images of steel engravings to use as a heading and have made lines of very, very light gray dots.

[Cushy Butterfield]

Nanami have both grid and 7mm, 8mm, and 9mm lines to download and use under your paper. It's under the resources heading. The lines are white on black which I like better than the usual black on white. The white on black as well as being easy to see through the paper helps disguise any distracting show through when you're writing on the backside of paper. Especially useful with Tomoe River I find.

[subbu68]

I have a plastic sheet printed with lines that came with a writing pad from IKEA. At times I keep it under the unruled sheet and write.

[purplepen]

I just make a very faint line with pencil and after the ink has dried I go back and erase the line. Simple.

[TheRealScubaSteve]

Nanami have both grid and 7mm, 8mm, and 9mm lines to download and use under your paper. It's under the resources heading. The lines are white on black which I like better than the usual black on white. The white on black as well as being easy to see through the paper helps disguise any distracting show through when you're writing on the backside of paper. Especially useful with Tomoe River I find.

 

That's a great idea that I'll have to try out.

[linearM]

I print my own letterhead on my ink jet printer with lines that are just dark enough to act as guidelines. I can barely see them. When I'm done writing the letter, the written words are such a contrast from the lines on the letterhead paper the guidelines are barely noticeable.

 

At other times I use a guide sheet with very dark lines under my writing paper.

[Runnin_Ute]

I usually have some sort of guide sheet that I put under the page I am writing on. Do I still drift off sometimes? Sure. I also have some Rhodia dot pad and graph pad, that I use sometimes.

[pmhudepo]

I usually have some sort of guide sheet that I put under the page I am writing on. Do I still drift off sometimes? Sure. I also have some Rhodia dot pad and graph pad, that I use sometimes.

 

I use a guide sheet as well.

 

If that doesn't work, as can happen on (birthday) cards, I might sometimes drawn a very thin pencil line, but usually I dont. Quite often I do a practice run on lined paper, to get a better feel for the lay-out and size, and then hope for the best as I transcribe onto the card.

[KKay]

Printable Paper.net has some free guide sheets. But I have not found a small enough size for my writing yet. I need to find a template with dashes in the middle, that are small enough for how I usually write in my pocket notebooks. I am also trying to improve my handwriting. I would probably write about the size of a college notebook paper, and need dashes in the middle. I can copy that and make a pdf if necessary. Then I can print as many as I need to, for personal use. My handwriting was getting pretty scratchy over time.

[ac12]

 

Printable Paper.net has some free guide sheets. But I have not found a small enough size for my writing yet. I need to find a template with dashes in the middle, that are small enough for how I usually write in my pocket notebooks. I am also trying to improve my handwriting. I would probably write about the size of a college notebook paper, and need dashes in the middle. I can copy that and make a pdf if necessary. Then I can print as many as I need to, for personal use. My handwriting was getting pretty scratchy over time.

 

 

Of course now that I'm looking for it, I can't find it.

There was a site where you could input the line spacing and it would generate a guidesheet with that line spacing.

You could also specify the thickness of the lines, so I made them HEAVY/WIDE so it would be easier to see through my writing sheet.

 

FOUND IT

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/writing.html

Edited October 21, 2015 by ac12