Printing the logbook
For a ring binder: A4, both sides, punched along the wide margin. Four settings decide whether it works.
The four settings
- Size‘Actual size’ or 100 %. Not ‘Fit to page’ – otherwise every page shrinks a little and the punch holes hit the text.
- Both sidesPrint on both sides and flip on the long edge. With ‘short edge’ every back page is upside down.
- Quality‘Normal’ or ‘Standard’, not ‘Draft’. Otherwise the fine grey lines and boxes disappear.
- ColourGreyscale for everything – unless there is a photo on the cover. Then the first PDF page in colour and the rest in greyscale.
One test sheet first
Print only PDF pages 1 and 2 and hold the sheet up to the light. Is the back the right way up? Is the wide margin for the punch holes on the same edge on both sides? If so, print the rest. If not, one of the four settings is still wrong – and you have only used one sheet.
Paper
Ordinary matt copy paper will do. At 90 to 100 g/m² less shows through when both sides are written on, and it lasts longer in the stable. A full year is about 66 sheets, half a year about 37, a quarter about 24 – with everything in; leave something out and it’s fewer.
Punching and filing
Punch along the wide margin: printed on both sides, it is on the same edge of every sheet. An ordinary two-hole office punch will do; punch small stacks and the holes line up everywhere. Hole reinforcements stop the week pages tearing out, and a clear plastic front sheet protects the cover.
In the stable
The current week goes on a clipboard at the box and back into the binder at the end of the week – that way the year stays dry. The page with the scale and the initials can be printed a second time, laminated and hung up next to it.
Write in pencil: it works in the cold and on damp paper too. What a laser printer prints doesn’t smudge, not even with wet hands.
No printer in the stable?
A copy shop prints the PDF for you. Say: ‘Both sides, actual size, flip on the long edge.’ Many will punch it too, or bind the pages with a spiral.
Rather have A5 booklets? Then you flip on the short edge, fold and staple – the detailed printing tips from Horse Logbook explain how.