A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking.
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A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking.
The earliest form of notebook was the wax tablet, which was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in classical antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages. [1] As paper became more readily available in European countries from the 11th century onwards, wax tablets gradually fell out of use, although they remained relatively common in England, which did not possess a commercially successful paper mill until the late 16th century. [1] [2] While paper was cheaper than wax, its cost was sufficiently high to ensure the popularity of erasable notebooks, made of specially-treated paper that could be wiped clean and used again. These were commonly known as table-books, and are frequently referenced in Renaissance literature, most famously in Shakespeare's Hamlet : "My tables,—meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." [1] [3]
Despite the apparent ubiquity of such table-books in Shakespeare's time, very few examples have survived, and little is known about their exact nature, use, or history of production. [1] [4] .The earliest extant edition, bound together with a printed almanac, was made in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1527. By the end of this decade, table-books were being imported into England, and they were being printed in London from the 1570s. At this time, however, it appears that the concept of an erasable notebook was still something of a novelty to the British public, as the printed instructions included with some books were headed: "To make clean your Tables when they be written on, which to some as yet is unknown." [1] The leaves of some table-books were made of donkey skin; [1] others had leaves of ivory [5] or simple pasteboard. [4] The coating was made from a mixture of glue and gesso, and modern-day experiments have shown that ink, graphite and silverpoint writing can be easily erased from the treated pages with the application of a wet sponge or fingertip. [1] Other types of notebook may also have been in circulation during this time; 17th-century writer Samuel Hartlib describes a table-book made of slate, which did "not need such tedious wiping out by spunges or cloutes". [6]
The leaves of a table-book could be written upon with a stylus, which added to their convenience, as it meant that impromptu notes could be taken without the need for an inkwell (graphite pencils were not in common use until the late 17th century). Table-books were owned by all classes of people, from merchants to nobles, and were employed for a variety of purposes: [1]
Surviving copies suggest that at least some owners (and/or their children) used table-books as suitable places in which to learn how to write. Tables were also used for collecting pieces of poetry, noteworthy epigrams, and new words; recording sermons, legal proceedings, or parliamentary debates; jotting down conversations, recipes, cures, and jokes; keeping financial records; recalling addresses and meetings; and collecting notes on foreign customs while traveling.
The use of table-books for trivial purposes was often satirized on the English stage. For example, Antonio's Revenge by John Marston (c. 1600) contains the following exchange: [7] [8]
Matzagente: I scorn to retort the obtuse jest of a fool.
[Balurdo draws out his writing tables, and writes.]
Balurdo: Retort and obtuse, good words, very good words.
Their use in some contexts was seen as pretentious; Joseph Hall, writing in 1608, describes "the hypocrite" as one who, "in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note". [4] [9] The practice of making notes during sermons was a common subject of ridicule, and led to table-books becoming increasingly associated with Puritanism during the 17th century. [1]
By the early 19th century, there was far less demand for erasable notebooks, due to the mass-production of fountain pens and the development of cheaper methods for manufacturing paper. [1] Ordinary paper notebooks became the norm. During the Enlightenment, British schoolchildren were commonly taught how to make their own notebooks out of loose sheets of paper, a process that involved folding, piercing, gathering, sewing and/or binding the sheets. [10]
According to a legend, Thomas W. Holley of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented the legal pad around the year 1888 when he innovated the idea to collect all the sortings, various sorts of sub-standard paper scraps from various factories, and stitch them together in order to sell them as pads at an affordable and fair price. In about 1900, the latter then evolved into the modern, traditionally yellow legal pad when a local judge requested for a margin to be drawn on the left side of the paper. This was the first legal pad. [11] The only technical requirement for this type of stationery to be considered a true "legal pad" is that it must have margins of 1.25 inches (3.17 centimeters) from the left edge. [11] Here, the margin, also known as down lines, [12] is room used to write notes or comments. Legal pads usually have a gum binding at the top instead of a spiral or stitched binding.
In 1902, J.A. Birchall of Birchalls, a Launceston, Tasmania, Australia-based stationery shop, decided that the cumbersome method of selling writing paper in folded stacks of "quires" (four sheets of paper or parchment folded to form eight leaves) was inefficient. As a solution, he glued together a stack of halved sheets of paper, supported by a sheet of cardboard, creating what he called the "Silver City Writing Tablet". [13] [14]
Principal types of binding are padding, perfect, spiral, comb, sewn, clasp, disc, and pressure, some of which can be combined. Binding methods can affect whether a notebook can lie flat when open and whether the pages are likely to remain attached. The cover material is usually distinct from the writing surface material, more durable, more decorative, and more firmly attached. It also is stiffer than the pages, even taken together. Cover materials should not contribute to damage or discomfort. It is frequently cheaper to purchase notebooks that are spiral-bound,[ citation needed ] meaning that a spiral of wire is looped through large perforations at the top or side of the page. Other bound notebooks are available that use glue to hold the pages together; this process is "padding." [15] Today, it is common for pages in such notebooks to include a thin line of perforations that make it easier to tear out the page. Spiral-bound pages can be torn out, but frequently leave thin scraggly strips from the small amount of paper that is within the spiral, as well as an uneven rip along the top of the torn-out page. Hard-bound notebooks include a sewn spine, and the pages are not easily removed. Some styles of sewn bindings allow pages to open flat, while others cause the pages to drape.
Variations of notebooks that allow pages to be added, removed, and replaced are bound by rings, rods[ citation needed ], or discs. In each of these systems, the pages are modified with perforations that facilitate the specific binding mechanism's ability to secure them. Ring-bound and rod-bound notebooks secure their contents by threading perforated pages around straight or curved prongs. In the open position, the pages can be removed and rearranged. In the closed position, the pages are kept in order. Disc-bound notebooks remove the open or closed operation by modifying the pages themselves. A page perforated for a disc-bound binding system contains a row of teeth along the side edge of the page that grip onto the outside raised perimeter of individual discs.
Notebooks used for drawing and scrapbooking are usually blank. Notebooks for writing usually have some kind of printing on the writing material, if only lines to align writing or facilitate certain kinds of drawing. Inventor's notebooks have page numbers preprinted to support priority claims. They may be considered as grey literature. [16] Many notebooks have graphic decorations. Personal organizers can have various kinds of preprinted pages. [17]
Artists often use large notebooks,[ citation needed ] which include wide spaces of blank paper appropriate for drawing. They may also use thicker paper, if painting or using a variety of mediums in their work. Although large, artists' notebooks also are usually considerably light, because they usually take their notebooks with them everywhere to draw scenery. Similarly composers utilize notebooks for writing their lyrics. Lawyers use rather large notebooks known as legal pads that contain lined paper (often yellow) and are appropriate for use on tables and desks. These horizontal lines or "rules" are sometimes classified according to their space apart with "wide rule" the farthest, "college rule" closer, "legal rule" slightly closer and "narrow rule" closest, allowing more lines of text per page. When sewn into a pasteboard backing, these may be called composition books, or in smaller signatures may be called "blue books" or exam books and used for essay exams.
Various notebooks are popular among students for taking notes. The types of notebooks used for school work are single line, double line, four line, square grid line etc. These notebooks are also used by students for school assignments (homeworks) and writing projects.
In contrast, journalists prefer small, hand-held notebooks for portability (reporters' notebooks), and sometimes use shorthand when taking notes. Scientists and other researchers use lab notebooks to document their experiments. The pages in lab notebooks are sometimes graph paper to plot data. Police officers are required to write notes on what they observe, using a police notebook. Land surveyors commonly record field notes in durable, hard-bound notebooks called "field books."
Coloring enthusiasts use coloring notebooks for stress relief. The pages in coloring notebooks contain different adult coloring pages. [18] Students take notes in notebooks, and studies suggest that the act of writing (as opposed to typing) improves learning. [19]
Notebook pages can be recycled via standard paper recycling. Recycled notebooks are available, differing in recycled percentage and paper quality.
Since the late 20th century, many attempts have been made to integrate the simplicity of a notebook with the editing, searching, and communication capacities of computers through the development of note taking software. Laptop computers began to be called notebooks when they reached a small size in the mid-1990s, but they did not have any special note-taking ability.[ citation needed ] Most notably Personal digital assistants (PDAs) came next, integrating small liquid crystal displays with a touch-sensitive layer to input graphics and written text. Later on, this role was taken over by smartphones and tablets.
Digital paper combines the simplicity of a traditional pen and notebook with digital storage and interactivity. By printing an invisible dot pattern on the notebook paper and using a pen with a built in infrared camera the written text can be transferred to a laptop, mobile phone or back office for storage and processing.
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. Modern bound books were preceded by many other written mediums, such as the codex and the scroll. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination.
The codex was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term codex is often used for ancient manuscript books, with handwritten contents. A codex, much like the modern book, is bound by stacking the pages and securing one set of edges by a variety of methods over the centuries, yet in a form analogous to modern bookbinding. Modern books are divided into paperback and those bound with stiff boards, called hardbacks. Elaborate historical bindings are called treasure bindings. At least in the Western world, the main alternative to the paged codex format for a long document was the continuous scroll, which was the dominant form of document in the ancient world. Some codices are continuously folded like a concertina, in particular the Maya codices and Aztec codices, which are actually long sheets of paper or animal skin folded into pages. In Japan, concertina-style codices called orihon developed during the Heian period (794–1185) were made of paper.
Paper size standards govern the size of sheets of paper used as writing paper, stationery, cards, and for some printed documents.
A perforation is a small hole in a thin material or web. There is usually more than one perforation in an organized fashion, where all of the holes collectively are called a perforation. The process of creating perforations is called perforating, which involves removing bits of the workpiece with a tool. Old-fashioned lick-and-stick postage stamps are perforated. When a tool makes small cuts in the material it is called 'rouletting', because that tool often resembles a roulette wheel, with blades around the edge. Raffle tickets are a good example of rouletting.
Graph paper, coordinate paper, grid paper, or squared paper is writing paper that is printed with fine lines making up a regular grid. The lines are often used as guides for plotting graphs of functions or experimental data and drawing curves. It is commonly found in mathematics and engineering education settings and in laboratory notebooks. Graph paper is available either as loose leaf paper or bound in notebooks.
Office supplies are consumables and equipment regularly used in offices by businesses and other organizations, by individuals engaged in written communications, recordkeeping or bookkeeping, janitorial and cleaning, and for storage of supplies or data. The range of items classified as office supplies varies, and typically includes small, expendable, daily use items, consumable products, small machines, higher cost equipment such as computers, as well as office furniture and art.
Moleskine is an Italian manufacturer, papermaker, and product designer founded in 1997 by Francesco Franceschi, based in Milan, Italy. It produces and designs luxury notebooks, as well as planners, sketchbooks, leather backpacks, holdalls, journals, wallets, various accessories, and stationery.
Ruled paper is writing paper printed with lines as a guide for handwriting. The lines often are printed with fine width and in light colour and such paper is sometimes called feint-ruled paper. Additional vertical lines may provide margins, act as tab stops or create a grid for plotting data; for example, graph paper is divided into squares by horizontal and vertical lines.
The Big Chief tablet is a popular writing notebook designed for young children in the United States. It is made with newsprint paper and features widely spaced lines, easier to use for those learning to write. The tablet has a prominent representation of an American Indian man in full headdress on the cover, hence the name "Big Chief".
A loose leaf is a piece of paper of any kind that is not bound in place, or available on a continuous roll, and may be punched and organized as ring-bound or disc-bound. Loose leaf paper may be sold as free sheets, or made up into notepads, where perforations or glue allow them to be removed easily. "Leaf" in many languages refers to a sheet or page of paper, as in Folio, as in feuille de papier (French), hoja de papel (Spanish), foglio di carta (Italian), and ルーズリーフ.
Wasōbon is a traditional book style in Japan that dates from the late eighth century AD with the printing of "Hyakumantō Darani" during the reign of Empress Shōtoku (764-770AD). Most of the books were hand-copied until the Edo period (1603–1867), when woodblock printing became comparatively affordable and widespread. Movable-type printing had been used from the late 16th century, but for various aesthetic and practical reasons woodblock printing and hand-copied remained dominant until much later. Japanese equivalents for "book" include 本 (hon) and 書籍 (shoseki). The former term indicates only bound books, and does not include scrolls. The latter is used for printed matter only. The most general term is 書物 (shomotsu), which means all written or printed matter that has been collected into a single unit, regardless of construction.
An exercise book or composition book is a notebook that is used in schools to copy down schoolwork and notes. A student will usually have different exercise books for each separate lesson or subject.
Coptic binding or Coptic sewing comprises methods of bookbinding employed by early Christians in Egypt, the Copts, and used from as early as the 2nd century AD to the 11th century. The term is also used to describe modern bindings sewn in the same style.
Continuous stationery (UK) or continuous form paper (US) is paper which is designed for use with dot-matrix and line printers with appropriate paper-feed mechanisms. Other names include fan-fold paper, sprocket-feed paper, burst paper, lineflow, tractor-feed paper, and pin-feed paper. It can be single-ply or multi-ply, often described as multipart stationery or forms. Continuous stationery is often used when the final print medium is less critical in terms of the appearance at the edges, and when continuously connected individual sheets are not inconvenient for the application. Individual sheets can be separated at the perforation, and sheets also have edges with punched holes, which also can be removed at the perforation.
A writing material is a surface that can be written on with suitable instruments, or used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building materials on which writings or drawings are produced are not included. The gross characterization of writing materials is by the material constituting the writing surface and the number, size, usage, and storage configuration of multiple surfaces into a single object. Writing materials are often paired with specific types of writing instruments. Other important attributes of writing material are its reusability, permanence, and resistance to fraudulent misuse.
Disc-binding is a type of notebook binding that uses discs to hold the sheets of paper. Each disc has a raised edge. Notebook sheets have perforations along the binding edge that match the profile and spacing of the binding discs.
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses, or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through a fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying. Although paper was originally made in single sheets by hand, almost all is now made on large machines—some making reels 10 metres wide, running at 2,000 metres per minute and up to 600,000 tonnes a year. It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, painting, graphics, signage, design, packaging, decorating, writing, and cleaning. It may also be used as filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency, and security paper, or in a number of industrial and construction processes.
A desk pad or blotter is a table protector used when work such as painting or writing would otherwise damage the table or desk.
Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers along an edge with a thick needle and strong thread. One can also use loose-leaf rings, binding posts, twin-loop spine coils, plastic spiral coils, and plastic spine combs, but they last for a shorter time. Next, one encloses the bound stack of paper in a cover. Finally, one places an attractive cover onto the boards, and features the publisher's information and artistic decorations.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books:
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