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The perfect angle to staple paper

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 at the classic 45 degrees would it interfere with my desk space more than a 90 degree fixing?

So I set out and did some testing and you can see from the results what happened:

stapled paper at 0 degrees angle
At 0 degrees the paper is thrown out to the side making it quite unwieldy and easily prone to unwanted movement if you are reading. Not recommended unless you have a shallow space at your desk.

stapled paper at 22.5 degrees angle
Our photocopier has automatic stapling and uses a 22.5-degree fastening and you would think that a large company would have tested this aspect a lot but it seems not as I find this angle quite uncomfortable to use.


At the classic 45 degrees all seems well but undue strain is put on the paper especially as you get to the back pages of a large document. the lifted pages wave about a bit.


A slight twist on the classic 45 degrees fixing. This has a little more flair as it starts to adhere to some of the Golden Mean rules. My personal preference and the one I think Da Vinci would have gone for (and he may have done - if only the Vatican would allow us to see the books.).


Similar to the 0 degree option but this time goes forward rather than out to the side. Same problems but could be useful if you need to concentrate on the document as it stops you getting to your keyboard. People with attention deficiency should choose this.

The next question to arise is do left-handed people staple to the left or right of the document?

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 mails over people shoulders.

If you know of any references to this thorny problem please leave a comment with a link in to them.

Update!

Oh dear. I had to change the images because I built them wrong! Thanks to George Spiggott on Metafilter for pointing it out.

Posted by Simon at July 2, 2004 7:12 AM

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Comments

1 July 2, 2004 3:41 AM Tim

Maybe it's just me because it's far too early in the morning for this, but it seems to me that the graphics are all out, in that if you folded them back into a pile they would end up being a landscape-oriented sheet on top, where the rest of the pile is portrait-oriented.

Am I indeed crazy?

2 July 2, 2004 5:13 AM Simon

No Tim you were not crazy - I had got them wrong! It was me who didin't have enough sleep. I have changed them and they look a lot better. :)

3 July 2, 2004 6:33 AM dab

Indeed 67.5 degress is my favorite and I never realised that I do exactly that until just now. Our office copier does that horrid 22.5-degree angle as well, and I *gasp* re-staple them. I'm sad. ;)

4 July 2, 2004 8:34 AM poli

It always seemed to me that the angle should be determined based on appearance as I rarely match up the fold of the paper with the staple angle. Sometimes, however, OC gets the better of me and I staple and fold at 45 because it seems the fairest...

5 July 4, 2004 11:55 AM kate

As a student, I put stapled notes into a ring binder folder and a 0 degree is certainly the way to go. That way, I don't have to take it out of the folder to read it or take out the staple and paper clip it instead.

Both me and my left-handed collegial friend staple on the left of the document.

6 July 21, 2005 6:39 PM lynn

Where do you staple if the papers are landscape???? (horizontal)

7 November 17, 2005 5:02 PM Jeff

How should I arrange my documents if I am stapling a mixture of Landscape and Portrait? Does the document that is on top dictate where the staple goes?

8 April 26, 2006 6:12 PM Brad Martin

How do I staple multiple sheets? say for example 24" x 36" sheets?

9 January 16, 2007 6:36 PM Dwight Titus

I wish that the company I worked for demanded a uniform staple angle. The professionals (or unprofessionals) I work with are so unconsistant that it makes my job very difficult and demanding. I am constantly re-stapling their messy mail. Amen for this website!

10 February 16, 2007 12:33 AM linda

is it politically incorrect to staple on the top right of a portrait document? thank you, Linda

11 February 24, 2007 12:26 AM krista

ha. this is great!

i found your post by searching google for TIPS on stapling. i work for an architectural firm and are on a pretty constant basis having to assemble sets of up to 200 sheets. we just spent $200 on a heavy duty stapler, but i'm still having to rip out every couple staples, sometimes a few times before i could get them to go through properly. grrrrr. my coworker insists the "jackhammer" method works best, but i just can't master it.

i appreciate your humor and sensibility at the same time.

cheers.

12 October 18, 2007 11:39 AM Naveen Kuamr

Thank you so much for the information provided on the net.
For me classic 45 degrees angle seems well.

13 February 24, 2008 7:56 PM M.P.

How do you staple checks to bank statements? I store my statements using prong bases to file folders. Right now I staple the checks (returned from the bank) behind the last page with the staple at 45 degree. The problem is the checks are flapping all-over. I need some "means" to keep it clean, and don't want to double staple so I can "look" at each check individually.

M.P.

14 February 25, 2008 8:54 PM Rod Hemphill

The best way is to align all papers (including legal size landcape)in readable position and staple in the upper left corner. This means that landscape papers will extend beyond the right edge of portrait positioned sheets. Simply fold those papers even with the portrait right edge. All papers are now positioned for easy reading, and there's no question about what corner of a landscape sheet to staple. All awkwardness disappears.

15 February 25, 2008 8:55 PM Rod Hemphill

The best way is to align all papers (including legal size landcape)in readable position and staple in the upper left corner. This means that landscape papers will extend beyond the right edge of portrait positioned sheets. Simply fold those papers even with the portrait right edge. All papers are now positioned for easy reading, and there's no question about what corner of a landscape sheet to staple. All awkwardness disappears.