Making Your Own Graph Paper

Making your own graph paper is one technique that may help you with sketching production functions or cost curves you want to remember. I know I have often had to grab a scrap piece of paper to try and sketch out some curve and there is nothing worse than coming back to study for a test weeks later and having no idea what the scribbles mean.

Making Graph Paper in Microsoft Word
This method has been on several lists, but the origin of it is unknown to me.

1. Open a new document.

2. In the menu at the top of the screen, click "Table", then choose "Insert Table".

3. After you've chosen "Insert Table" a box will pop up asking you for your preferences. Tell it you want 31 columns and 42 rows. When you click "ok" the box will disappear and you'll see a grid on your document, but it won't be right yet.

If you have a new version of Word, you can just hit print at this point.   Older versions of word will print rectangles and not squares.  The extra steps below will correct for that.

4. Back up at the menu at the top of the screen, choose "edit" and then choose "select all". That will select the whole graph.

5. Now go back tot he menu at the top of the screen, choose "table", then go down the list and choose "cell height and width". You get another pop-up box.

6. In this box, with the columns tab showing, tell it you want your columns .2". (Two-tenths inches)

7. In this same pop-up box, click the rows tab, where it says "height", get the pull down menu and change it from "auto" to "exactly" and tell it you want your rows at 14.4 points.

8. Click "ok" to get rid of the pop-up box and make the graph the size you chose.

Graph Paper Printer This program is freeware and prints custom graph paper in any size and color. There are numerous options to choose from. The Help File explains all the different types you may use. Besides being able to make graph paper for knitting, this program also contains ways to make everything from engineering sheets to music sheets. To use this program, you must be running Windows 95 or 98. To check out this method, click on Graph Paper Printer. The file is self-extracting.