How to Put Together a Printable Planner + My Favorite DIY Planner Supplies

Learn how to put together a printable planner, plus my favorite DIY planner supplies.

I'm sure you've seen all sorts of printable planners online. Maybe you've even seen ours, The Abundant Life Printable Planner. But just how do you print it and put it all together so that you have a lovely planner that you want to use, day after day? In this post, I'll share how to put together a printable planner, plus my favorite DIY planner supplies.

How to Put Together a Printable Planner + My Favorite DIY Planner Supplies

So, you've downloaded a printable planner for yourself. Now what? Well, you need to decide what to print it on and put it all together somehow. Here's how to do that.

The best paper for printing printable planners

After you've downloaded your printable planner, you can, of course, print it on plain old cheap copy paper. But if you want the best planner experience, you will want to use slightly higher quality paper. You don't want your pen to bleed through. Nor do you want to see through the page to the next day, right? That's why I prefer to use 28-32 lb. paper for printable planners. Here are some options.

1. Best Paper for Printable Planners

The best paper to print your planner on is this HP Premium Presentation Paper. It's super smooth and thick enough to prevent bleed through from most pens.

2. Better Paper for Printable Planners

The next best thing, is this Epsom Presentation Paper.

3. Okay Paper for Printable Planners

Still a step above cheap copy paper, this Hammermill 28 lb. Paper is heavy enough for printable planners.

How to bind a printable planner

So after you print your planner, you need to put it all together, right? There are several options for binding any printable planner. Here are my favorite 3 ways to bind a printable planner.

1. Binder

The easiest way to put your printable planner together is to print it, hole punch it with a 3-ring hole punch and place it in a standard 3-ring binder. This makes assembly very easy and you can rearrange pages to your heart's content. This is a fabulous DIY option, especially if you've never put together your own printable planner.

2. Book Rings

The second way you can put any printable planner together is to print it, punch it with Circa Desk Punch and then use Circa Office Book Rings to put it together. Doing this will make your planner look and function like the Happy Planner style planners that are so popular right now. If you have a punch, this is about as simple as the binder option. You can find tabs and dividers at the craft store or online for this type of planner too.

3. Professional Binding

If you choose to have your planner printed at a local print shop, you could have them bind it. Most print shops offer Cerlox or spiral binding for a nominal fee. This binding option requires that you have the planner complete and in order before printing. For example, if a planner (like ours) comes with individual pages, you'd need to put it all together into one document before sending it to print. I did this a few years ago with our old planner.

My Favorite Pens for Planning

And of course you need to write in your planner after it's printed and bound, right? You can use any pen you'd like but…Hands down, my all-time favorite pen is the UniBall Vision Needle Fine Point pen in black. It ‘s perfect for quick scribbles and it's smooth feel. I buy it by the boxful!

I also use colored pens, markers and highlighters. But I'm not too picky about those and generally just grab whatever happens to be nearby.

Other Handy Planner Tools

I find these tools to be helpful in putting together and using my own printable planner too.

A label maker

Stickers

Have you got a planner for this year yet? What planner are you loving?

xo,
Shannon