Leuchtturm1917 Medium A5 Ruled Hardcover Notebook (Lime) - 249 Numbered Pages

The Leuchtturm1917 is a perfect book for journaling regularly. I use mine as a Bullet Journal. The dotted pages (which do NOT look like the preview -- the dots are very light and create 36 boxes by 28 boxes, I believe, and 5mm boxes) are perfect for keeping text within a line and organizing a layout without restricting you at all when drawing doodles or cartoons. From a distance the dots are almost invisible, which is great for giving your pages a picturesque look.The pages are a very good quality, surpassed in my experience only by Rhodia. I've given pen tests on everything I use on the back pages, and not even my Pilot Parallel bleeds normally. However, you can't double pass fountain pens (my Pilot Parallel or Metro) while the ink is still wet; if you need to fill gaps wait until your first pass is dry and the ink won't bleed. The pages haven't caused any feathering on my fountain pens, which is a huge step up from my Studio Oh notebook which let the wet ink run all over the place. You can get very crisp lines. I will say that darker/thicker inks, while not bleeding, will ghost a little to the back side. This means if a back is blank, you can see some of the writing on the other side. However in my experience this hasn't impeded legibility on that back side after I started writing. Personally I like the effect, because it makes my book feel "full" on my used pages, even if I didn't write a lot on one side.The extra features are very nice. This book comes with two bookmarks (the small ribbons) which are very useful in a Bullet Journal setup. (For instance, I bookmark my current day and my "inbox", and also use washi tape thickened page edges to "bookmark" my monthly spread.) Every page is numbered, a very helpful feature when you want to index everything, but even without that it's useful to just write "see page 47" by a note on page 22 where you then expand the note, without losing your web of writing or flow. Speaking of indexing, the journal starts with three pages set up as an index. When you open the book there's a place for your name, a blank page that would be uncomfortable to write on fully due to the binding, then a sheet with index front and back and then a third page for the continued index. The back of that last page is blank, and the next page is where the dots begin, numbered as page 1.There is also a back flap, of course, which is where I store a mini straightedge to make crisp lines on the go. The back few pages are perforated which I doubt I'll rip out, but the option is there and the perforation is barely noticeable. The band is tighter than my old Moleskine ever was, and the hard cover feels much more durable (though I do sometimes miss the leatherette soft cover feel and flexibility).Overall I've really loved this notebook. It's a great quality book for a reasonable price. I loved moving to this from my Moleskine and especially leaving behind some of my decorative but lower quality notebooks. I highly recommend this product.

I started using Moleskine notebooks in 2002, and for over a decade I used one on a daily basis – for journaling, writing, and even taking notes in class. I was never drawn to them for their hipster cache; I just prefer plain-covered notebooks that are durable and have decent quality paper, and those became my trusted standby. Unfortunately, Moleskine's quality has dropped considerably in recent years, and like many longtime users, I've had to wander in the wilderness in search of something to take their place.After a lot of trial and error, I've concluded that Leuchtturm is the best notebook in this particular niche. The devil (or divine, as the case may be) is really in the details. Numbering the pages and including a table of contents at the front is absolutely brilliant – whether you choose to organize your notebook with it at the outset, or just want to keep track of where particular information lands while writing in a linear fashion, it's incredibly handy. The two bookmark ribbons are another nice touch, for similar reasons – you really get the sense that someone put thought into maximizing how useful and enjoyable this notebook is for the average customer.I'm also impressed with the paper quality. I've used gel pens, Microns, and even Tombow brush markers, and while there is some ghosting on reverse pages, I have yet to see any actual bleed-through. Additionally, dot print is a nice midway point between lined pages and blank ones; they keep normal pages of writing straight and tidy, but are faint enough that it's easy to ignore them altogether when sketching or working on something like large hand-lettering script.All in all, these are definitely worth the larger price tag.

I fell in love with this journal the moment I touched it out of the package. It's absolutely beautiful. I write in a lot of journals, and fill them up in a reasonable amount of time. I've never had a journal 200+ pages, and this is the perfect length. It has the look of a normal hardcover book, which I love. This is a high quality journal worth every single penny. WAY better than a Moleskine will ever be. It comes with stickers to label, which I appreciate so much. I'm a writer, and when I first ordered this the only thing I had in mind to use it for was just a regular journal, but I will defiantly be buying more to write rough draft stories in. Also, this is a great notebook for classes and studying since it has a table of contents in it as well. I was torn between blank and ruled. I've never had a blank journal, but I've written stuff in sketchbooks before. I add drawings in my journals constantly, but I also am pretty crazy and sloppy when it comes to writing without a guide. I bought the ruled and I could not be anymore happier for my choice. The lines are faint enough to draw and not get distracted by them, but not faint enough to where they serve little purpose. Absolutely love this. I want them in all the colors and versions now. And really, if you use Moleskine's please try this notebook so you can stop wasting your money. Thank you Leuchtturm!