Some printable paper rulers

Disable any "shrink to fit" option when printing.

There is a note below about accuracy.

Here are more "odd" (difficult to use) rulers for education

Notes

Don't "shrink to fit"! You should disable any options like "shrink oversize pages to paper size" or "scale to fit paper" on your print menu.

My plan was to make all the ruler pages small enough that no browser was tempted to shrink them while printing. But a reader reports Acrobat 5 still defaults to shrinking the "combo" ruler (by 10%), unless this option is disabled. I'd like to hear if anyone else has this problem, and with what software and page. Thanks.

Accuracy

I've not heard of anyone having problems. Please let me know if you do.

A quick and rough test is to measure an object of known size.

Such as paper -- US 8.5 x 11.0 in, 216 x 279.4 mm; A4 210 x 297 mm.

Or currency -- US dollar 2.61 x 6.14 in, so 66.3 x 156.0 mm; 5 EUR Grey 120 x 62 mm; 10 EUR Red 127 x 67 mm; Can notes 152.4 x 69.85 mm; Aus $5 130 x 65 mm, Aus $10 137 x 65 mm; India 100 Rupees 157 x 73 mm; Japan 1/2/5/10,000 yen 76 mm x 150/154/156/160 mm; China 5-yuan 135 x 63 mm, 20-yuan brown 145 x 70 mm; etc, etc.

A teacher writes: "I decided the small errors caused by printing or xeroxing wasn't important as long as ALL the rulers were xeroxed at the same time and so should be nearly identical. As long as we don't try to compare results with outside sources, the students will learn just as well.".

Other notes

Card stock can be used instead of paper (it's stronger).

Overhead transparencies can also be used. Especially with a sharp paper cutter.

"Print them on overhead transparencies and cut them with a paper cutter and you have a bunch of rulers the students can't write on!! Plus, I prefer to measure with a transparent ruler." [a reader]

"I did use the un-numbered rulers this week, and really like them. I copied them onto overhead transparency film, then cut them. They're a lot more durable than paper, and very flexible, Best of all, they're see-through, which is really helpful when kids are measuring "odd" things they need to see. The only warning; you must have a VERY sharp paper-cutter, or you'll end up with pretty rough edges. You can easily hand-cut them, to use for general measuring, just not as a straight-edge line tool. Anyway, they sure work great in my science lab," [a reader]

"I am a science lab teacher and needed an inexpensive way for students to measure tadpoles while still in the containers. I ran your centimeter rulers off on trasparency paper in the copier, cut apart, and viola!!!! The students love them. They say they are crisper and clearer than the see through plastic rulers that you can buy!" [a reader]

Crafts

"I was working on growth charts for my children. I used a 4' long board (approx. 6" wide) and used stencils and stamps to personalize them. I saw one in a craft store which is where I got the idea. However they used a tailors tape measure to mark the growth portion but they only go up to 60" and I hope my kids will grow taller than 5'! [...] I could not find a suitable tape measure anywhere and I didn't want to make it myself as I thought that I would look very amateurish. [...] I will now use some special glue that I have heard of called..."mish mosh" or something like that, to attach my printout to the charts." [a reader].

(I hear some inkjet inks and cheap toners allegedly fade and flake over the years, so one might consider using a good photocopy on acid-free paper. Perhaps. - mcharity)

The PostScript (PS) source was hand written. Feel free to modify it.

The PDF versions were derived from PostScript using ps2ps and ps2pdf.

The pages should work with both US Letter and A4 sheets (except where noted).

You might also be interested in A printable decimeter (10 cm) box and graphpaper.pdf.

And perhaps even A How Big Are Things? Cube.