Printable blank paper

When a blank page is the right page

Sometimes the most useful template is almost nothing at all. Blank paper with a deliberate frame or header is what art teachers hand out for drawing assignments, what students need for title pages and book report covers, and what event planners use for menus, programs and place cards. Illustrators and comic artists use a bordered page to keep artwork inside a safe area for scanning, and crafters print crop-marked sheets to cut card toppers, gift tags and journal inserts accurately.

Printing it rather than grabbing a sheet from the printer tray also means you get the exact paper size you want, which matters for planners, notebooks and small-format projects.

Choosing size, border and header

Paper size. Pick the size of the final page. For journal inserts, choose A5, Half Letter, A6, B6 or the travelers notebook size; for posters and large drawings, Tabloid or A3. Our paper sizes guide compares them all with measurements in inches and millimeters.

Border. A thin border frames artwork without distracting from it. A thick border makes a strong edge for signs and posters. A double border, two lines a little apart, gives a classic certificate look. Leave it off for a truly plain page.

Margins. The border follows the margin settings, so adjust the margins under Advanced options to make the frame wider or narrower. Turn on Printer-safe margins to make sure the border never falls into the edge zone your printer can’t reach.

Header. Name and Date fields make a page instantly usable as a worksheet or test sheet. Add a title, and the page becomes a cover, a menu or a sign.

Ideas for blank pages

• Storyboard and comic pages: a thick border, then rule your own panels.
• Drawing tests and art portfolios: thin border with Name, Class and Date fields.
• Cut-down cards: Letter or A4 with crop marks and wide margins, trimmed to the marks.
• Matching notebook covers: a title and a double border on colored paper.
• Practice pages for lettering: a blank page under a lightbox with your guide sheet beneath it.
• Mixed-media journals: blank A5 pages printed as a folded booklet, interleaved with dot grid or graph paper signatures.

Setting it up in the generator

Choose Blank paper as the paper type and pick the size and orientation. Select a border style and decide whether you want corner crop marks. Under Advanced options you can set the line color for the border, change the paper color to preview colored stock, add a title and header fields, and choose how many pages to include. For small formats such as A5, A6, Half Letter, B5 and B6, the Booklet option prints two pages per sheet in folding order.

Save a setup you use often as a preset on your device, or copy the link to share it with colleagues. If you need the page as an image for a slide or a digital planner, export a PNG at 150, 264 or 300 dpi (600 on small papers) instead of the PDF; the transparent option drops the white background entirely.

Printing tips

Print at Actual size so the border sits exactly where you set it. With Fit to page the frame shrinks slightly and may no longer line up with a mat, a frame or another page. If you print on card stock, check your printer’s maximum paper weight and use the manual feed slot if it has one; straighter paper paths reduce jams and skewed borders.

For colored paper, keep the paper color in the generator set to white. The paper color setting prints a solid fill, which is handy for previews but uses a lot of ink on a real sheet.