Custom filofax paper

The two pictures show things I usually bring along in my hand luggage on the plane. Guess which one the security screeners want to look at most often.

Correct! The razor gets a brief glance or no attention at all (usually), the organiser looks odd on their screens and is often inspected. Mine was going to become a 9600bps modem when it grew up, as I have told many a security screener.

Ever since I got my first duplex printer I've made my own paper for it. Nothing very fancy, really. Four constraints only: ⓐ I like to write on the right-hand side, ⓑ occasionally I want to measure something so there should be a ruler, ⓒ when I tear out a page to give to someone it can be useful to give them my name and phone number, and finally ⓓ I like to have open space to draw.

The first step is to test the printer and adjust the output. Most printers print the two sides of the paper slightly displaced or rotated, but it's easy to correct for that. Here's a postscript program to test and correct. Print it, hold the printed sheet against the light, tweak the source, repeat.

Second, you'll need a hole puncher and a paper cutter. The puncher was a little difficult, apparently the geometry of 6-hole diaries varies a little.

Once the preliminaries are over, it's time to write postscript. Postscript is a fun little language. Here's the file I currently use. It has changed over time, as my whims change. There's no calendar any more: the phone has taken over that task. The file should be amenable to further change. I suggest printing close to as few edges as possible so you don't have to be so careful when you cut the paper afterwards. My design demands annoyingly precise cutting. Next time I cut, I'm going to modify it so that only three of the six cuts per page have to be precise.