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All About Planners

Printable planners to organize your home, business and life!

June 7, 2017

How to make printable graph paper in Photoshop (perfect for habit tracking and bullet journalling!)

Graph paper is a great format for habit tracking. In today’s tutorial I’ll teach you how to make your own graph paper in a just a few minutes – you’ll be able to make your graph paper as small or as large as you like, and sized to fit any planner you like!

Related: Ultimate planner page size guide (with printable reference cheat sheet)  

how to make printable graph paper planner printable photoshop tutorial diy planner insert half size a5 template habit tracker

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking one of these links I’ll receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you) in exchange for referring you.

How to make printable graph paper in Photoshop

If you don’t have Photoshop, you can purchase and download it here (my affiliate link).

To enlarge the screen of the video, click the square icon in the bottom right hand corner of the video (it will say ‘full screen’ when you hover your mouse over the icon). 

For more planner related videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel 

Links mentioned in the video:

  • My ecourse: How to Make Planner Printables (there’s numerous tutorials on how to make all different types of planner printables including lined note paper)
  • Printable planner size guide cheat sheet
  • My other ecourse: How to make patterns in Photoshop

Details:

  • I used a 0.25″ x 0.25″ grid
  • You can make the lines of the graph paper as fat or as thin as you like
  • Make a copy of your rectangles by clicking the layer in the layers menu and pressing CTRL and J on your keyboard
  • I recommend using a minimum 0.5” border on all sides as some printers cannot do borderless printing
  • Light grey for the lines makes it less busy, especially since you’re not likely to use grey pens but you may use black (so I don’t recommend making the lines black)

Related: Printing Tips

free printable graph paper planner printable tutorial habit tracker organizer a5 insert travellers notebook daily how to diy

Some ideas for using this graph paper:

  • Savings tracker
  • Debt payoff
  • Bills
  • Make a bar graph (or line graph) and compare a goal with actual (e.g. a habit, savings, days you did homework, hours worked etc.)
  • Habit tracker (I also shared a free printable habit tracker in this post)
  • Bullet journal (print a bunch of copies and have them bound into a notebook – free printable front & back covers available here)
  • Attendance record if you’re a teacher
  • Year in pixels mood tracker
  • To do lists – the boxes are great for coloring in tasks as you complete them (especially if you love color-coding your to do’s)
  • Turn it into a weekly planner (I used this for one of the weeks of the 52 Planner sin 52 weeks challenge – make sure you subscribe if you want to be notified when that post is published!)

I’ve left a title line at the top so you can use it for anything you like – or print multiple pages and use it in different ways 🙂

I’ve also left enough room on the left and right margins for hole punching if you want to use them in a ring bound planner or binder. I prefer to use the Arc discbound system, MAMBI Happy planner discs and Levenger are similar.

Related: Planner Organization: Why I use the Arc Planner instead of binders and How to choose a binding system for your planner (comparison and which one I like the most) 

free printable graph paper planner insert diy habit tracker graph income expense tracker attendance record a5 half letter how to make a custom printable planner weekly

Choose any page size

The best part is that now you know how to make graph paper – you can make it at any size you like! 🙂 If you’re not sure what size you need – I recommend making it at standard page size (US letter size or A4 depending on where you live in the world), then you have the option to resize the page in your printer menu, and your printer will automatically shrink it for you.

Select A5 or ‘custom page size’ if you want to print at Erin Condren planner size, Plum Paper, personal size etc.

how to resize printables free printable graph paper diy planner insert habit tracker income expenses tracker

And then ‘fit’ to page

how to resize printables free printable graph paper diy planner insert habit tracker income expenses tracker bills

Related: Printing Tips

free printable graph paper planner insert diy checklist habit tracker 1 page planner minimalist functional planning plan with me free planner insert download

If you want to color code or just want lots of color options, I’ve made the printable in 8 other colors colors – all can be purchased in this bundle from my shop!

Printable Graph Paper color coded a5 travellers notebook insert diy half letter size a4 habit tracker weekly planner printable

Using Graph Paper for habit tracking

I was inspired by the idea of using graph paper as a habit tracker, so added a few other elements to make a weekly planner which I’m using for this week of the 52 Planners in 52 Weeks Challenge. It’s similar to week 14 where I used this printable (post coming soon!) only I added a dinner plans section as well. I liked with the graph paper that I could split that section into as many components as needed.

printable weekly planner habit tracker blog post planner meal plan school 1 page planner layout a5 insert diy resize printables graph paper minimalist unusual weekly planner

I’m trying out the HI-TEC-C Maica pens this week. So far I’m not overly impressed with these pens (especially given how expensive they were!). They’re needle tip pens which I don’t normally use as they tend to write too fine and the ink skips if you write on an angle like I do. There’s no purple in the pack 🙁 so I’ve used red to color code social media / behind the scenes / maintenance tasks instead.

I used the 5 spaces on the left for blog planning, but you could also use it for:

  • Meal planning with a shopping list on the left and then errands and other random notes at the bottom
  • School work with assignments due for classes each week in the 5 spaces
  • Any other use you can think of!

Found this post helpful? Pin It!

how to make printable graph paper planner printable photoshop tutorial diy planner insert half size a5 template habit tracker

 

Related Posts:

  • How to make a stripe pattern in Photoshop (video tutorial)
  • How to color match anything in Photoshop (step by step tutorial)
  • How to make a planner bookmark (DIY Page Markers Tutorial)
  • Planning 101: Need versus want versus wish list planner supplies
  • Planner Organization: How to color-code your planner (so you’ll actually use it effectively)

You may also be interested in...

  • How to choose the right habit tracker for your plannerHow to choose the right habit tracker for your planner
  • Planning Inspiration: 15 habit tracker tips & ideas to tryPlanning Inspiration: 15 habit tracker tips & ideas to try
  • How to make planner printables (advice from a planner addict that’s made over 4000 printables)How to make planner printables (advice from a planner addict that’s made over 4000 printables)
  • 20 Bullet Journal Weekly Spread Ideas (One Page Layouts)20 Bullet Journal Weekly Spread Ideas (One Page Layouts)
  • Bullet Journal Layouts: 26 Non-typical 2 page weekly spreads to tryBullet Journal Layouts: 26 Non-typical 2 page weekly spreads to try
  • 10 Quick and Simple Bullet Journal Daily Layouts10 Quick and Simple Bullet Journal Daily Layouts

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Posted In: Bullet Journal, Bullet Journal Tips, Graphic Design, Photoshop Tutorials, Planning Tips & Inspiration · Tagged: bullet journal, bullet journaling, bullet journalling, free bullet journal printables, free planner printable, free printable habit tracker, habit tracker, habit tracker printable, how to bullet journal, how to make a bullet journal, how to make a planner, how to make graph paper, how to make planner printables, how to make printables, how to start bullet journallling, planner printable, printable graph paper

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Welcome to All About Planners! I’m Rachael, a 20-something Aussie addicted to graphic design and all things planning. On the blog you’ll find more than 1,000 posts about all things planning including planner reviews, tips, favorite supplies and some of my past weekly spreads.

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