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Thursday, March 15, 2012

Poll result: How important is acid-free paper in your planner or notebook?

Here are the results, of 57 votes:
I'll only buy a planner or notebook if the paper is acid-free
  12 (21%)
 
 
It's an added bonus if the paper is acid-free but not a dealbreaker if it's not
  28 (49%)
 
 
It doesn't matter at all to me if the paper is acid-free or not
  17 (29%


To be honest I was expecting more people to say that acid-free/ archival paper is important to them.  After all, the paper planner and notebook crowd is more likely to value long-term archiving than the electronic crowd, or so I assumed.

But it turns out, it doesn't matter! A friend of mine in the planner business told me after I started this poll that acid-free paper is an industry standard these days, and 99% of paper is acid-free whether the company advertises it as such or not. Even the notebooks you buy at the grocery store most likely have acid-free paper.

This is great news to me! I'm in the group of people who will only buy a planner or notebook if the paper is acid-free. Now that it's a non-issue, this opens up all kinds of great planner and notebook options for me!  I can use whatever I like without worrying about my writing fading over time.

Many thanks to everyone who participated in this poll!

4 comments:

  1. And thanks for that info about the industry standard! That makes me breathe easier about all kinds of paper I use!

    -Tina

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  2. I must confess that I never thought about acid-free paper. I have been writing journals since I was about 10 years old. Most of them were cheap notebooks, and I wrote with biro or pencil or fountain pen. They are all - without exception - 100% intact and readable. Nothing has vanished or bleached out, it's just as if I wrote it yesterday.

    As for my planner: I simply use Frixion pens. I love that I can erase and rewrite entries and todo's and I see no necessity in conserving all these daily notes for generations to come. I keep planners for the last 7 years, because I'm obliged to do so by tax law (I'm self-employed), but after those 7 years the inserts get tossed.
    I do keep my journals - however! (and hopefully DH will never try to put them in the trash again ... ;-))

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  3. I love using good old Mead composition books after a year or so the pages are greasy and the ink has faded so I have been looking for better paper lately.

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  4. OOPS! I totally forgot to vote. I'm probably in the second group of your poll.

    I never used to care about the paper quality AT ALL until a couple yrs ago when I started using a daily planner & notebooking regularly. Now I'm more aware, but I still use my old cheapo notebooks I have lying around. I've also taken up drawing so will only buy good sketchbooks from now on for that.

    I recently bought 2 spiral notebooks at a thrift store but didn't worry b/c the maker was Clairefontaine. I just checked the labels & they don't say "acid free", just "made in France".

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