Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that I have recommended. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details.
Want to create your own printable dotted
Dot grid
And here you can find step-by-step instructions on how to make dotted
Materials I use and recommend
- Printer – I have this HP printer that I absolutely love.
Paper – I use this HP Premium 32 paper for most of my printables. For half letter printables I’ve found this half letter 32lb paper to be a good option even though it’s not as bright white as I wish it could be.- Pens for Bullet Journaling – I love these Sakura pens and these Tombow Dual Brush Pastel Markers
If you need to resize the printable:
Paper trimmer – I have thispaper trimmer from Fiskars, but this smaller one is also great.- Scissors – I only use Fiskars scissors. Psst! This Fiskars scissors set is so cute!
What is dot grid paper
Dot grid
And you can easily make your own dot grid
Note: You can definitely make dotted
In this post I’m going to walk you through on how to create letter-sized 0.5cm dot grid
But you can use this tutorial to make different sized printable dotted
After the step-by-step tutorial, I’ll give you guidelines how to resize your
So here we go.
Don’t want to make your own dotted
You can download free printable dot grid
Don’t want to print out the dot
There are some good dot grid loose leaf options in Amazon.
Step-by-step instructions on how to make dot grid paper using Google Sheets (DIY)
1. Start by opening Google Sheets
2. Resize your
- Click “print” (1.)
- Change settings (2.):
Paper size: Letter (8.5″ x 11″)- Page orientation: Portrait
- Scale: Normal (100%)
- Margins: Custom Margins
- Change margins (3.):
- Change all margins to 0.25″ (Top, Bottom, Left and Right)
- After you’ve changed the settings and the margins click “cancel” (4.)
- Don’t worry! You won’t lose your settings you just made. You’ll just return to the sheet.
In the next steps I’ll show you how to make letter sized dot
US letter: Columns A-AL, Rows 1-53.
If you want to make different size
Half letter: Columns A-X, Rows 1-40 (you can skip steps 9-11)
A4: Columns A-AK, Rows 1-56
A5: Columns A-Y, Rows 1-39 (you can skip steps 9-11)
3. Resize the columns + add extra columns (steps 5-11)
- Resize the columns to create the right size grid for the dots:
- Choose all columns from A to Z by clicking on ‘A’ and dragging your mouse over A-Z (5.)
- When all columns from A to Z are active, right-click your mouse (6.) and a menu appears
- Choose ‘Resize columns A-Z’ from the menu (7.)
- Change the pixels to 19. (8.)
- We want to create a dot grid
paper where the distance between the dots is 0.5 cm. - 19 pixels = 0.5 cm.
- We want to create a dot grid
- Add more columns to create enough columns and dots for a letter sized
paper . (9.-10.)- Google sheets only gives you columns from A-Z so we need to add more columns. If you use Excel or Pages you should be able to skip this step.
- Add more columns by choosing ‘A-M’ by clicking on ‘A’ and dragging your mouse all the way to ‘M’.
- Copy columns A-M by clicking command+C on Mac or CTRL+C on Windows.
- Click on Z and paste the copied columns by clicking Command+V on Mac or CTRL+C on Windows. (10.)
- You should end up with columns from A to AL. (11.) That’s enough columns to create a letter sized
paper .
4. Resize the rows (steps 12-15)
- Resize the rows to create the right size grid for the dots:
- Choose the rows from 1 to 53 by clicking on ‘1’ and dragging your mouse down all the way to ’53’
- When all rows from 1 to 53 are active, right-click your mouse (13.) and a menu appears
- Choose ‘Resize rows 1-53’ from the menu (14.)
- Change the pixels to 19. (15.)
- We want to create a dot grid
paper where the distance between the dots is 0.5 cm. - 19 pixels = 0.5 cm.
- After you’ve done this you’ll end up with a google sheet that has the right sized columns and rows on it and now we can add the dots on the grid.
- We want to create a dot grid
5. Add dots on the cells (steps 16-18)
- Write a dot in the cell ‘A1’. (16.)
- Copy the dot to all cells on the first row by clicking in the bottom corner of the cell ‘A1’ and dragging your mouse all the way to ‘AL1’. (17.)
- The dots should appear on all cells on the first row.
- Then click in the bottom corner of ‘AL1’ and drag your mouse all the way down to ‘AL53’. (18.)
- The dots should appear on all the cells.
6. Center and change the color of the dots and (steps 19-22)
- Center the dots by activating all the cells by clicking in the corner – the activated cells appear blue/gray on the sheet. (19.)
- Center the cells by clicking ‘Horizontal align’ and choose ‘Center’ – the middle one. (20.)
- Change the color of the dots by activating all the cells by clicking in the corner – if they’re not already activated. (21.)
- Change the color by clicking ‘Text color’ and choose ‘Gray’ or another color of your choice. (22.)
- The color ‘Gray’ creates light enough dots that they’ll still help you write and draw but don’t show too much on the
paper .
7. Print the dot grid
- Click ‘Print’ (23.)
- Double-check settings (24.):
Paper size: Letter (8.5″ x 11″)- Page orientation: Portrait
- Scale: Normal (100%)
- Margins: Custom Margins (all 0.25″)
- Formatting: De-select ‘Show gridlines’ & ‘Show notes’
- When you’ve double-checked the settings & margins, click next (25.)
- By clicking next Google Sheets creates a PDF document of your dot grid
paper - Open PDF from your downloads
- Print out your dotted
paper and add it to your notebook, binder, planner or bullet journal or use it as-is.
8. Want to make different size dot grid
- Steps 1-4 are the same
- When you resize the columns (steps 5-11) and rows (steps 12-15) choose these dimensions instead:
- Half letter:
- Columns from A to X
- Rows from 1 to 40
- A4:
- Columns from A to AK
- Rows from 1 to 56
- A5:
- Columns from A to Y
- Rows from 1 to 39
- Steps 16-25 are the same as in the step-by-step tutorial .
I hope you were able to create the dot grid
Want to remember this?
Pin this post – how to make printable dot grid