Half Letter weekly planner

Half Letter, half size, 5.5 x 8.5: all the same thing

This size goes by at least three names and they all describe one page: 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 139.7 x 215.9 mm, 396 x 612 points. Exactly half a US Letter sheet. Junior is another name for it, and Franklin Covey use it as their standard planner page.

It has one property no other size has, and it is worth understanding because it makes home printing trivial.

The only size that halves perfectly

A Letter sheet turned on its side is 792 points wide. A Half Letter page is 396 points wide. Two of them is 792 points. The fit is exact, to the point, with zero slack.

A5 on A4 does not do this: it leaves 1.00 mm, because ISO rounds A5 down. Half Letter on Letter leaves nothing. There is one cut line down the centre of the sheet and both halves are exactly the right size, so a guillotine or a craft knife against a ruler gives you two perfect pages.

If you print planner inserts at home regularly and you are choosing between A5 and Half Letter on that basis alone, this is the one that will annoy you less.

Who uses this size

It is the dominant insert size in the North American disc-bound world, where it is punched with eight mushroom holes at a 25.4 mm pitch, giving a 177.8 mm hole span and a 19.05 mm gap at each end. That 25.4 mm pitch is universal across Levenger Circa, Staples ARC, TUL, Atoma and the Happy Planner, so a Half Letter sheet punched for one fits all of them.

It is also common in seven-ring Franklin Covey binders, though note that pattern is not compatible with six-ring A5: it uses a completely different 25.4 and 38.1 mm spacing.

Printing it

For two per sheet, use the 2-up file and print at 100%, double-sided, flipping on the SHORT edge. The short edge matters: the sheet is landscape, and flipping on the long edge puts every second side upside down. The file sets this in the print dialog for you.

For one per sheet with trim marks on all four sides, use the centred file. It positions the page with 38.10 mm at the sides and 31.75 mm top and bottom.

Also known as

This layout is searched for under several names, and they all describe the same file: half size planner printable, half letter planner printables, free printable half size planner pages, 5.5 x 8.5 planner printable. One page, one grid.

Questions