Subtle 5mm dot grid: the gold standard for bullet journals and clean sketches.

Free 5mm dot grid paper PDF. The classic bullet journal layout. Subtle, unobtrusive dots in Letter, A4 and A5.

Dot Grid Paper | Free Printable 5mm Dotted PDF

Dot Grid Paper (5mm)

The dots exist to mark intersections, not to fill space. If you're tempted to connect them into visible lines, you don't actually want dot grid, you want [graph paper](/graph-paper/graph-paper-5mm). The right way to use this paper is to ignore the dots until you need one.

Use the dots as registration, not decoration

Big bullet-journal-style headers and decorative banners only look good when they sit straight. Pencil the bounding box first using four dots as corner anchors, then ink inside the pencil outline. The dots register, your ruler doesn't even need to come out.

Sketch headers in pencil first

A page can hold a hand-drawn flower in one corner and a grid-aligned weekly calendar in another. That's the whole point of dots. They support structured work without forcing it on freehand work nearby.

Mix line and freehand work freely

Light dots disappear under handwriting and ink. Perfect for finished pages where the dots should be invisible. Gray or darker dots stay visible after you've drawn over them, which matters for technical diagrams where you still need to count cells after sketching.