Printable Project Notes Technique

Digital ink, physical paper

I have discovered a technique that seems to help with project work. It is a combination of digital and physical. I call the technique the “Printable Project Notes technique.” Let me tell you how it works.

The generic objective is to use your printer to create something that can help direct your project. The idea is that your screen real estate while doing project work is extremely valuable; wouldn’t it be nice to have something physical to reference?

So why not just use paper notes… When simplicity is wanted, paper is welcome. Personally I use my journal when I’m in this mood. However; you cannot manipulate the ink once its written on paper. Photoshop doesn’t have that problem. But can you use Photoshop to write notes?

The short answer is yes. I recently bought a Wacom One drawing tablet which enables me to draw digital ink onto digital canvas. Fortunately, too, Photoshop has a preset for US paper.

The “Letter” Photoshop preset matches the dimensions of print paper

For me, I use the Pencil (b) tool at 6 size to write notes. What if you need multiple pages of notes? Photoshop’s art board (v) tool to the rescue! You can create new art boards for each new page of notes you want to create. If you focus an art board with the tool selected, you will see plus signs to create a new art board in a specific direction.

Once you are done create project notes, use File > Export Artboards as PDF.

You can now open this PDF and print!

This technique may be useful if you want the opportunity to use digital authoring tools to create project notes but don’t want to dedicate screen or mental real estate to these notes. Tell me what you think of this technique in the comments. Thanks for reading!

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