SimonCox.com
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Topic
Misc
The best angle to staple paper is 67.5 degrees. This allows the pages to be flipped without causing too much distrusption to the desk around where you are reading the document. Stapling paper together helps keep the order of the pages and makes it easier to file away.
This simple article on how to staple papers together was picked up by Metafilter and traffic went mad for a few weeks. Readers wanted more info and suggestions were that a thesis should be written, so I expanded it and I even had to change the original graphics as someone, quite rightly pointed out that one was technically incorrect. I was still getting searches through to the new website for this article several years later so decided to republish it. Here is the article:
I have just stapled four sheets of paper together in a routine that I do several times a day and yet it only just occurred to me that there may be a perfect angle at which to staple the paper together for ease of reading. For example, if I were to staple the paper at the classic 45 degrees would it interfere with my desk space more than a 90-degree fixing?
Firstly I checked my process to ensure I could repeat the paper stapling test accurately each time.
So I set out and did some testing to see what the best angle for stapling paper could be used at and what advantages each had. I have only included the successful angles, in between angles were rounded out to the final ones. You can see from the results what happened:
The next question to arise is do left-handed people staple to the left or right of the document?
I have no idea but if you horizontally flipped the above angles, 0, -22.5, -45 and -67.5 degrees, then left-handed people should have the same, but mirrored, experience as right-handed people. If you did not flip them but used the same angle top right then you might get into some difficulty.
Later on, I will be examining what is the best angle to use if you intend to fold the page behind, such as if you are reading documents while on the train, and a lot of people do for I have read many interesting internal emails over people shoulders.
If you know of any academic references to this thorny problem please leave a comment with a link to them.
It is possible to staple paper together without a traditional office stapler. I have seen techniques making tears in the paper and folding. There are paper fasteners that punch holes in the paper but I have never used one that keeps the paper together longer than 30 seconds. You could also use a nail gun to staple your paper but to be frank that’s a bit overkill and wire staples are a cheap, economic way and also reusable as long as you don’t extract the staples with pliers!
Surrey University Printer user guide including how to staple paper
How to staple paper when using MS Word from Warwick University