Off Lines Notepads Review

10 December 2018 By ian

Off Lines is a German company that makes little notepads with easily removable pages.

Size: 9cm by 13cm (small version); 7.4cm by 10.5cm (medium version)
Price: €8 (small); €10 (medium); add €7 for a pen; a pack of small refills costs €6 for 100 sheets
Pages: 64 sheets
Cover: denim tag in black or ‘sahara’ (tan)
Paper: 90gsm, chlorine-free
Ruling: plain

Off Lines’ notepads come in two sizes, two covers and with or without a pen.

The covers are denim tag, which is like a stiff cardboard but waterproof. They’ll take a fair bit of mistreatment but will eventually show signs of wear, which may or may not add to their appeal, depending on what you like. I feel, myself, that they’ll age well.

They contain 64 loose leaf pages held in place with an elastic loop. This is a simple but very effective system. The pages stay put but when you want to take one out it’s easy. They don’t tear. You slip a current note under the elastic at the front of the pad for convenience, if you wish. If you want to use the pad like a regular notebook, keeping the pages in place, then the cover and used pages will fold back out of the way. In a way, this is quite like the ring-bound Atoma-style systems but without the bulk of the rings.

The paper itself is very fountain pen friendly. Inks retain their sheen and brilliance and there’s no feathering or bleed-through. Dry times are pretty good, too. I’d happily use a regular notebook made with this paper.

There’s an option to buy a pen with the pad. This is a small and very average ballpoint from Online. The refill is poor, being very reluctant to get going. However it’s a D1 size so there are plenty of alternative options. I find it hard to recommend the pen, as there are better alternatives available for less. (In fact, this actual pen is available for €4. That said, the pen loop could be very useful.)

The notepads themselves, though, are a great little system implemented very well. If you’re looking for a small notepad with easily removable pages then I can highly recommend these from Off Line.

Pros

Great paper
Easy to use as a notepad yet easy to remove the pages

Cons

Pen isn’t great