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Thread: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

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    Post Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    I take a lot of notes, scribble ideas, and draw out designs. My favorite notebook is a steno pad for its combination of portability and convenient page size.

    Tried the Office Depot brand steno pad. Does not appear to have a specific name, just says Office Depot Writing Pad. The cover has a black and gray design printed over dark gray background. It contains 70pgs, white paper and is not Greg ruled. The paper worked fine with regular ball point and pencil. The paper was terrible with fountain and roller ball pens. Neither fountain pens nor roller ball pens would write on this paper without frequent skipping. First time I have seen skipping due to the paper instead of the pen. Both my Retro 51 Tornado roller ball and a Pilot G2 gel ink pen readily bled through leaving ink dots, some of good size, on the next sheet. Using the reverse side of a page was out of the question. It appears to be a very thin, hard, paper.

    After some experimenting I came across a readily available steno pad which works well with water based inks. Both a TWSBI medium nib fountain pen with a well saturated ink (Noodler's Purple Martin) and the Retro 51 roller ball wrote nicely on the paper. The nib was well wetted by forcing ink into the feed via the piston mechanism. The Retro 51 writes a wet line. Looking at the reverse page I could tell something was written on the front of the sheet, but it wasn't enough to interfere with clear writing on the reverse. The paper was canary yellow, 144pgs, and Greg ruled. The paper also comes in green and white. The steno pad is a 'TOPS' brand. The specific model is "The Docket". The cover is black with the model name printed at the bottom of the cover in gold ink. The paper appears to be 18-20lb weight, but I am no expert so take that with a grain of salt. The cardboard backing is heavy. Overall, a nice quality pad for about $8. When you consider the number of pages is double that in a typical steno pad, the price is not bad. Seems like a good deal when you consider it has quality paper which works well with a medium nib fountain pen and a wet writing roller ball. Tops appears to be widely distributed as a quick online search turned them up at Office Depot and Walmart.

    Being a frugal shopper, I believe this is a good deal. How it would perform on a very wet nib like a flex or a broad tip I can't say. It worked well with the pens I used. The Tops Docket is now my notebook of choice.


    EDIT:
    I checked the TOPS website (https://www.tops-products.com/) and found out the following information on this product.

    Paper Weight: 16 lb.
    Acid Free: YES
    Back Cover Weight: 60 pt.

    Tops price for the same notebook was much higher, so I would shop around. Mine cost $7.99 at Office Depot.
    Last edited by Armstrong; July 22nd, 2015 at 09:05 PM.

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    Senior Member naimitsu's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    The Pen Posse at work noticed that FP inks worked best on the yellow legal pads we had... or at least "best" of the crap paper we have at work. The printer paper is awful, the smaller steno pads absorbed the ink like a paper towel, and the sticky notes are either waxy (which makes the ink simply pool) or as bad as the steno pads!

    Now I think I'll see if we can convince the admins to stock Tops notebooks instead.

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    Default Re: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    I regularly use Tops Docket Gold legal pads, 20lb weight, which I buy at Office Depot. There are also Tops Docket Diamond legal pads that have 24lb paper but I haven't found them nearby.

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    Default Re: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    I have been using the Tops Docket for a little while now and have nothing but good things to report. How other Tops notebooks perform I don't know, but The Docket series work well.

    As to printer paper, HP LASER JET paper not ink jet paper seems to work very well. I am using a HP Laser Jet, 24lb, 98% white for extensive writing in my Bible study. It is working great, handle all colors well, and can be written both sides without any issues. The only draw back I can find is that if you write with a fountain pen and press harder, the nib seems to drag. I tend not to use much pressure so it hasn't been an issue for me. Laser printer paper has a good reputation for fountain pen use in general from the reading I have done on different blogs. Multi-use paper is a mixed bag and ink jet paper is terrible.

    Being that I can buy a 500 sheet packet of the HP paper I mentioned for the price 'premium' papers would supply 80 sheets I find it a good deal. I am not one to buy based on the brand name so much. I'm looking for performance at the lowest cost possible, some might call that cheap, others might call it frugal.

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    Default Re: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    I've been hunting for this pad high and low. It seems that its not carried in my local stores. Perhaps when I go on vacation a few of my stops should be to the local Office Depot or Walmart huh? I have heard that this paper is amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on some.

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    Default Re: Quality Steno Pad At A Frugal Price

    The paper is good. The only downside is the the 16lb weight if that can called a downside. It would be better for show through if a little heavier. But it doesn't interfere with using both sides since it doesn't show through much. It has not bleed through on me either.

    The Tops website has a where to find page.

    https://www.tops-products.com/wheretobuy/

    maybe that can help. I ordered mine from Office Depot online. Now what I wrote only applies to "The Docket" line of Tops steno pads. But, their website gives good detail on their products so it may be possible to find other products that work well from them with some research. Good luck!+
    ---------edit----------
    Here is another link:
    https://www.tops-products.com/note-taking-7431.html
    I wouldn't buy direct from them. They require a large purchase and their prices are high on their website. Gives you some ideas of other products to keep an eye out for though.

    Last edited by Armstrong; July 31st, 2015 at 10:27 AM.

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