How to print on vellum

Vellum has a way of turning any planner page into something a little more special — the blooms sitting softly above your handwriting. It also has a reputation for being fussy to print. It isn't, once you know three small things.

What you'll need

• Translucent vellum paper, around 100–115gsm, cut or sized to A5. Heavier vellum feeds more smoothly and holds the ink without curling.

• Your printer — an inkjet at home works beautifully; so does a print shop, if you'd rather hand it over.

• A ruler and a paper trimmer or craft knife, for the borderless trick below.

• A few quiet minutes, and somewhere flat for the sheets to rest while they dry.

Print settings, the gentle version

Open your PDF and print at 100% scale — never "fit to page" or "shrink to fit" for this first pass, so the pattern lands exactly where it should. Choose your printer's transparency, vellum, or heavyweight-matte media setting if it has one, set quality to best, and keep ink density low-to-medium. Feed one sheet at a time, and give each page a moment to dry before you stack it with the next.

Don't have a borderless printer? Here's the trick

Most home printers can't print right to the paper's edge — you'll see a thin white margin no matter what you try, even with "borderless" switched on. Rather than fight it, work with it:

1. Print your file onto a slightly larger sheet — A4 is perfect for an A5 design — using your printer's normal (non-borderless) setting at 100% scale.

2. Let it dry for a minute, then lay it on a cutting mat with a ruler along the intended A5 edge.

3. Trim with a paper trimmer for the straightest line, or a craft knife and ruler if that's what you have to hand.

4. Turn and repeat on the remaining three sides — the tiny white margin disappears, and what's left reads as a full, borderless print.

A small mercy: because vellum is translucent, even a hair of misalignment in the trim is forgiving — it sits over your page, not fixed inside a binding, so a millimetre either way won't be noticed once it's layered on.

Printing both sides (duplex)

If your design is double-sided, print a single test sheet first — vellum is a little precious to waste on a misfire. In your print dialog, choose two-sided (duplex) printing, and flip on the short edge unless your printer's manual says otherwise for portrait pages; that's what keeps the second side right-side up.

On an HP printer with Instant Ink, open the print dialog's paper type and select plain paper or presentation matte rather than a photo setting — vellum can smudge under a heavier photo ink load. A medium quality setting is usually kinder to the sheet than "best" when you're printing both sides, since less ink means less time waiting for the first side to fully cure before the second pass.

Let it rest, then trim

Give each sheet a minute or two flat on the bench before you handle it — vellum holds ink a little longer than regular paper. Trim to size if you printed oversized, then lay the sheet over any planner page. The blooms sit softly above your writing, and the page beneath shows through exactly as it should.

Katherine x

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