Showing posts with label A6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A6. Show all posts

06 May 2021

Is A6 the same as Personal size?

At least once a week I'm sure I've seen that question 

"Is A6 the same as Personal size?"

It would be very mean to just say NO, LOOK IT UP!!! but we aren't that cruel? 😊

This picture might help start the explanation:


The page sizes of the ones shown are as follows: 
  • Personal size - 171 x 95mm (h x w) = 16,245 sq mm
  • A6 size - 148 x 105mm (h x w) = 15,540 sq mm
  • Pocket size - 120 x 81mm (h x w) = 9,720 sq mm
In terms of page square area, A6 and Personal size are very similar, although their size proportions are different. A6 being wider but shorter than Personal size. 

All three of the sizes shown share the same number of ring spaced holes, six in total, split this in to two groups of three with the three rings spaced at a common 19mm spacing. The 'central spacing between the two groups of three is different:
  • Personal = 50.8mm (2 inches)
  • A6 = 38mm (1.5 inches)
  • Pocket = 19mm (¾ inches) 
One side effect of these hole spacing is that Pocket size can fit on to the rings of an A6 organiser 


Mini fits on to A6 too


And finally M2 also fits 


M2 will also fit on to Personal rings in a similar fashion. But M2 is 64 x 103mm (h x w) so there is some overhang when you put M2 in to Personal size. 

The closeness in page area between Personal size and A6 is possibly a reason why Filofax have never produced an A6 organiser sticking to Pocket and Personal sizes.

A6 size is an ISO216 paper size therefore the height and width proportions are fixed 1:1.4142 

Even though Filofax doesn't sell A6 size there are plenty of companies that do. I will not attempt to list them all. 

Sadly you will often see sellers advertising organisers and inserts as being A6 when they are in fact Personal size, the clue is in the page size. 

See our guide to popular paper sizes for more information. 


23 July 2018

A6 Inserts


'Where can I get A6 inserts from?' another question that pops up a lot in the Facebook groups and in my in-box on a fairly regular occurrence.

So here a list of sources for A6 inserts which I have split in to 'Download and Print Yourself' and 'Printed'

Download and Print Yourself

You might need some help to print your own inserts available here: Printing A6 Inserts/Pages

Printed

Printed but not A6

The following inserts are not true A6 size. However, they are the correct ring spacing. They are narrower, but they will be fine in an un-widened Van der Spek Senior.

Naturally inclusion in this list does not mean that we personally recommend or endorse any of the sellers included. 

We will do our best to keep the list up to date. Please let us know of any new suppliers or any dead links in the list. Thank you. 

16 July 2018

Buying an A6 ring organiser

"Where can I get an A6 size organiser?" is a frequent question that pops up on some of the Facebook groups or in one of my emails.

Today I want to try to help all those prospective A6 users find a suitable A6 organiser. Naturally personal tastes vary and budgets vary, so I'm not going to recommend one particular brand or model.

As well as buying direct from the companies there are also the Facebook groups too, see the end of this post for links to all of them.

So in no particular order...

Gillio

Gillio currently sell two A6 size organisers, their A6 Compagna, and the A6 Mia Cara. Both are made in a variety of leather colours and finishes. Both models come with 23mm A6 rings

We reviewed the Gillio A6 Compagna when it was released.

Gillio batch produce all of their products, this can mean that they might be out of stock of a particular size, colour, model for longer than everyone would like. It is not possible to pre-order items.

However they do have an alert service on their website, which you can register your email address on.

This does two things. Firstly it informs them of the level of interest in a particular model/size and colour, this will then help them decide their production schedule. This schedule is not made public.

Secondly if you have registered an interest, you will receive an email when that particular model/size and colour is back in stock and about to be released for sale again.

Production numbers of any one colour vary depending on the perceived demand for a particular colour/finish in a particular model/size.

So if they are out of stock register an interest straight away...

See the Gillio Website for more details.


Van der Spek.

Van der Spek produce several A6 models in their 'Senior' size.

However be aware they they do two sizes in Senior. Un-widened for the original Senior size inserts (150x95mm) and Widened for A6 size inserts (148x105mm)

Un-widened will take A6 size inserts but you will have to use 'top-tabs' on dividers for the best results.

This past post will help explain the difference in more details.

Within the Van der Spek model range there are basically two models.

The 'Touch Me' range in Senior size this is a 'ready to ship' model and is available with either 20mm or 25mm Krause rings. The Touch Me range are made externally to Van der Spek using leather from a French tannery in a choice of 5 colours. If a colour is out of stock it will not show up on the website.

All of the current Touch Me models are made in widened size and can take A6 with 25mm rings. They have an expansive range of pockets etc, including a full width back pocket and two pen loops all as standard.

The Touch Me range is here on the Van der Spek website.

There is also the Custom range, these are all made to order, you get to pick the leather colours inside and out, the thread colours, all the various options etc. The number of possible permutations is huge therefore virtually no two are the same!

In the Custom Senior range you can specify 13mm, 20mm or 25mm size rings

Production time is approximately 4 weeks from order to shipping. Naturally the price is higher for this level of customisation, but a lot of people go this route because they can specify exactly what they want.

All of the Custom range are made in Van der Spek's own workshop in the Netherlands under the watchful eyes of Petra Van der Spek. Petra will help you decide the final design of your Custom Organiser if you want to go outside of the normal options available.

For full details of the Van der Spek Custom range see their website here.


Succes
Succes have a large number of different 'Senior' models available these are all designed for slightly narrower inserts than A6 at 95mm x 150mm, they can also supply inserts in this size as well.

See their website for full details.


Mulberry
Mullberry offer a small range of leather Mulberry Agendas which are A6 size and available in leather in a number of colours.

They also sell inserts and dividers for their Agendas too.

See their website for full details.


There are also a small number or new smaller makers that I found out about.

Pedori Vienna

See their Etsy Shop for full details

They also have a Facebook page.


Mystic Little Gifts

See their website for full details.

They also have a Facebook page.




When it comes to Facebook Groups this list isn't exhaustive, but it is certainly the main ones to be aware of if you are seeking out an A6 ring bound organiser or information about them.


Be careful when buying from Ebay, Etsy, AliExpress etc. People often describe Personal size organisers as being A6 and they aren't, wrong page size and different ring spacing.

I'm sure over time the number of outlets for A6 ringed organisers will increase, the size is becoming more popular.

11 April 2018

A6 Reversed Enhanced Time Management Insert

So here is the A6 version of the Reversed Enhanced Time Management Insert which we recently shared with you in A5 size.

To work with the smaller size, like other A6 inserts I have had to reduce the number of lines per day to three. The line height becomes an issue if you go higher than that.


We have maintained the same number of lines per day throughout the whole week.

Naturally you can easily adjust the headings, shading, fonts etc to suit your own needs/requirements by editing the source file and redoing the mail merge.

Source Files:
Note to change the year or the 12 months covered you just need to edit cell A2 of the Excel file. 

Merged Files:
    You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.
      When printing note these files are formatted to be A4 page size, to print on to A6 paper scale to fit (50%)

      This version will be known as the 'Reversed Enhanced Time Management' insert by virtue of the positioning of the appointments section on the opposite page. 

      To customise the files you will need to download the relevant source files listed above. When you've made all the changes you like to the template, you can perform a mail merge to create your own insert for any period you like. Check out our Free Diary Inserts link if you want more information on how to do this, including videos at the bottom of the page.

      Once again a big thank you to Ray at 'My Life All In One Place' for his hard work and co-operation with helping to create and support us with all these inserts.

      Creative Commons License
      This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

      24 January 2018

      A6 in Summary

      My small collection of A6 organisers

      A6 might not be a size I'm actively using a lot these days, but I know a lot of people that love this size. So it was time to update this post from a couple of years ago and also add in some more information too.

      A6 the paper size. 
      So what is so magical about A6 paper size and why has the planner world suddenly woken up to it? Until recently there were not many makes of organisers that fitted true A6 size paper, there now is, so people with a little hint from ourselves have started to look in to it a bit more.

      A6 size is 148 mm by 105 mm, it is half the size of A5 paper. A lot of people already use A5 organisers, so the A6 is a smaller version. The same page height and width proportions so it feels quite natural to switch between the two sizes.

      Alan did us an excellent paper size post some time ago on this very topic so it makes sense to mention it again.
      So as you can see printing for A6 is relatively straight forward. 

      Pre-printed A6 Inserts. 

      If you don't like the idea of printing your own inserts there are a number of businesses on Etsy that offer inserts in A6 size. I can't offer any opinions on them, but ask on the various Facebook groups and I'm sure you will get some recommendations.
      Diary Inserts
      Philofaxy have also made available a range of inserts for A6 size paper. 
      Printing A6 size inserts
      You will of course need to know how to print your own inserts and I did a tutorial on how to do that in another post. 
      Creating Inserts
      You might also want to create your own pages too. 
      So creating inserts for A6 is relatively straight forward, you do have to make some adjustments if you are going from an A5 insert down to an A6 one because everything is 70% the size of the original. So I generally still design in A5 but make the fonts bigger by a couple of  points and reduce the number of lines on a page by 30%, that then gives you the same line height as you have on A5.

      Other A6 page size combinations also work with A6 ring spacings.

      You can also put larger size pages in your A6 organiser with a little bit of folding of course, this is useful for maps and similar information sheets.

      Punching inserts for A6 organisers
      The ring spacing or hole spacing for A6 organisers is different to that of Personal size, but the Rapesco punch has a middle setting which is the correct spacing for A6 size organisers. The Rapesco also does Pocket and Personal size by moving the punch blocks together or apart.

      If you own one already you might not have realised there is a middle setting. Take the bottom cover off and then move the punch blocks slowly to the middle on both sides and you will feel the middle detent for A6 size. 


      Organisers for A6 size paper. 

      We have recently reviewed the new Gillio A6 organiser and the redesigned Van der Spek Senior size Touch Me organisers. Both come with 25 mm internal diameter rings.
      The Gillio A6 Compagna is currently available in 18 colours from €308 (approx €254 outside of EU).

      The Gillio A6 Mia Cara is currently available in 6 colours from €500 (approx €413 outside of EU).

      The Van der Spek Senior Touch Me comes in five colours the price is €119 (approx €99 outside of the EU).

      Van der Spek can also make you a custom leather Senior model the number of colour combinations runs in to the hundreds, prices start at €147.62 (approx €122 outside of EU) for a 20mm ring model, but there are options for 25mm rings plus addition things like:
      • Full width back pocket
      • Ring protectors
      • 2nd pen loop
      • Secretarial flaps
      • And anything else you consider extra... just email Petra!
      It is worth reading Van der Spek Senior Sizes to understand the different VdS Senior sizes

      Mulberry Agenda size is also a true A6 paper size organiser.

      William Hannah for leather disc-bound notebooks/planners with prices starting at £89 (approx £74 outside of the EU)

      My own conversion from Personal size to A6 also deserves a mention because I'm sure a lot of others are going through this thought process at the moment as well. 
      Finding more information.

      Apart from Philofaxy, where if you can't find the information then just ask Steve (philofaxy at gmail dot com) or take a look at one of the Facebook groups:
      Let us know if you have any questions or other insert suppliers in the comments.

      Prices correct at the time of publication of this post, please check websites for the up to date prices. 

           

      18 January 2018

      Tell us about...... 20

      It is about 3 years since we first started posting about A6 organisers and inserts. A lot has happened in that 3 years.

      So I've set myself a task to research and update my original A6 in summary post from 2 years ago, and republish it soon.

      There are some dead links and some information that needs updating in that post.

      Whilst I no longer use an A6 as a planner, I'm in A5 fairly exclusively now. I do use A6 for notes and things. The A6 size is very compact and easy to carry around.

      So I'm interested to know:
      • How many of you have moved over to using the A6 size? 
      • How many of you have tried it? 
      • What inserts do you think would be useful in A6 that aren't already available to purchase or download?

      Tell us in the comments below.

      18 September 2017

      A6 Year Planner - Vertical Format

      Another insert that we have never been asked for, a year planner but in vertical format rather than horizontal format and by popular request for A6 size. The A5 version is here, the Personal version is here and the Pocket version is here.

      It looks like this:


      Please note I used colour shading on this one just to enhance it a little bit. The downloads come with a 'normal' 12.5% grey shading we use on nearly all our inserts, but it is easy enough to change.

      You can print out this out on a single sheet of A4, do not scale it, print it 100%, trim the printed page to 148mm high by 287mm wide, punch and then 'Z-fold' to fit a A6 size organiser.

      The folds are at 105mm and approximately 196mm from the left hand edge.


      You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

      If you want to customise this insert to your own requirements you need to download the source files here Word file and the Excel file, you will need both.

      When you've made all the changes you like to the template, you can perform a mail merge to create your own insert for any period you like. Check out our Free Diary Inserts link if you want more information on how to do this, including videos.

      Once again a big thank you to Ray at 'My Life All In One Place' for his hard work and co-operation with helping to create and support us with all these inserts.

      Creative Commons License
      This work by Philofaxy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. Please download, adapt, use, share, but don't charge or use commercially.

      23 August 2017

      Gillio A6 Mia Cara/William Hannah A6 Notebook/planner

      After completing the review of the new William Hannah A6 leather disc-bound notebook/planner last week I had a sudden idea spring in to my head that I had to try out...

      Yes you guessed it, instead of the ring bound organiser of the Mia Cara, would the disc-bound William Hannah A6 notebook fit the outer jacket of the Mia Cara... in short yes!

      And the colour match is quite good too.


      It fits in perfectly. 


      The William Hannah leather A6 notebook doesn't have any pockets so using it with the Mia Cara outer jacket is a way of solving that should you want pockets.


      The disc-bound system is a lot more compact compared to the 23mm ring mechanism, this results in about a 15mm reduction in width compared to the Gillio organiser section, so the pen slot in the spine of the Gillio Mia Cara organiser section is still very useable with even more space than normal.



      Thank you to Gillio Firenze for supplying the A6 Mia Cara, and to William Hannah Leather Notebooks for the A6 Notebook. 


        

      16 August 2017

      William Hannah A6 Notebook/Planner - New Product Review


      Last weekend saw the on-line launch event of the William Hannah A6 leather notebook/planner on the Facebook group using a live video feed.

      David kindly offered to send me a sample to review, which I gladly accepted and it arrived in the post this last week.

      The William Hannah A6 leather notebook was delivered in exactly the same style of gift box as the A5 (previously reviewed), the A6 box is shown here with a Philofaxy business card for size.


      It opens in the same way as the A5 gift box to reveal the wrapped A6 leather notebook.

      I have to say that the packaging and 'opening experience' (if such a thing exists!) is comparable to opening any Apple product with the detail that has gone in to the packaging and the presentation of the product.

      If you wanted to give one of these notebooks as a gift, the recipient would be very impressed opening their gift.


      Inside was a Bordeaux and Petrol Blue William Hannah A6 leather notebook.


      It is nice to break out of my usual comfort zone of colours! See the website for all the colour combinations available.


      The A6 notebook uses the same size 20 mm stainless steel discs as the A5 with the same spacing as well. There are just 6 discs fitted on the A6 compared to the 8 fitted in the A5. So all existing paper punches will work.

      The stainless steel discs are finished to a high standard and the pages turn very smoothly.

      Here are the two sizes together for comparison.


      The William Hannah A6 notebook cover is made out of high quality Italian leather and the stitching is done to a high standard too.

      Of course if you already own an A5 William Hannah notebook you can pop A6 pages in to the A5 without any problems because the discs are spaced the same distance apart.

      I have experimented with putting A5 in to the A6, but that is still a 'work in progress' project !


      Another comparison with the William Hannah A6 I did was to compare it with two slightly different size Van der Spek A6 ring bound organisers. 

      In the left hand column of the photograph below there is a Van der Spek Senior with 20 mm rings, this is the same size as the discs in the William Hannah, so as you can see they are very close in size. 

      The Van der Spek is designed for paper 95mm x 140mm so slightly smaller than A6, A6 pages work in that Van der Spek if you use top tabs on dividers. Where as the William Hannah has a more compact arrangement with its disc system and normal A6 paper. 

      The right hand column is another Van der Spek Senior, but this time fitted with 25mm size rings and it is the full size suitable for A6 size paper. As you can see it is noticeably wider than the William Hannah A6 notebook, and thicker too. 

      The William Hannah A6 is quite a compact A6, if that makes sense! It measures 160mm high by 125mm wide. The 20mm Van der Spek Senior measures 176mm high by 145mm including the clasp. 


      The discs are threaded on to a stainless steel rod which is sewn in to the back of the leather cover in the same way as the ones are in the A5 model.

      This gives the notebook very good rigidity and stability which is normally an issue for disc system binders.

      With sufficient overhang and the quality of the Italian leather cover, this will protect the paper very well and your pages will not come to any harm in normal daily use.


      There are a full set of A6 inserts available for the new model. They include diary pages as well as a variety of lined, dot grid, grid, to-do lists etc.

      The paper is of very high quality and takes fountain pen ink without any issues at all. See the website for full details for all the inserts available.

      There are also a small selection of accessories available for the A6 including colourful dividers and a matching leather and elastic pen loop, the pen loop fits in the same way as it does on the A5 model. I have already ordered a pen loop and some dividers for the A6!.

      The William Hannah A6 Notebook is available in ten colour combinations 'off-the-shelf' these have been chosen to appeal to the majority of peoples tastes.

      In addition, like the A5 you can order an A6 notebook in a number of bespoke colour combinations of exterior leather, interior suede and the colour of the thread both inside and outside.

      You can also have your notebook cover monogrammed as well.

      For current prices and availability of both sizes of William Hannah Notebooks and accessories please see their website.

      Overall I am very impressed with the William Hannah A6 notebook, it satisfies many points for me, being flexible and compact as well as high quality and able to tuck in to a small bag without taking up too much space. I have always liked the proportions of A6 page size so it will be great to use it again as a notebook.

      Thank you to David Round at William Hannah Leather Notebooks for providing me with the review sample.

      Further Information:


      24 July 2017

      William Hannah Discbound Notebook/Planner - Update

      It has been over a year since I did my initial review of the William Hannah A5 leather disc-bound notebook/planner.

      A lot has happened since then, David Round (Owner of WH) has continued to work hard in developing the product and the brand in general.

      In May 2016 we created a small but friendly Facebook user group for William Hannah. It has about 170 members, it has grown slowly in the last year with people doing the usual thing of sharing photos and asking questions etc.

      David does the occasional live video to the group to bring us updates and show off new leather colours. Whilst these are live events, you can watch them at a later date if you missed them which is good.

      I've recently ordered a paper punch that will work with this type of book, in my search for a suitable punch I discovered a few different types available. As with all punches it pays to do your research because of prices and availability can vary where ever you are in the world. (see the links at the end of this post)

      My punch should be with me in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to creating some of my own inserts for my WH notebook to try it out in different ways.

      Other interesting news is that William Hannah is going to launch an A6 version of the William Hannah Notebook. The A6 model will have 6 discs compared to 8 discs on the A5, they will be the same diameter and the same spacing as the A5 model.

      Once again there will be a selection of leather colour combinations available as 'off the shelf' models and like the A5 you will also be able to order bespoke combinations as well.

      Look out for news on this new product on the William Hannah website, address below.

      Like the A5 you will be able to order from William Hannah a selection of high quality paper packs in different styles for the A6 in the same way you can for the A5.

      The paper supplied by William Hannah is of exceptional quality, no surprise really as David is a fountain pen fan!
      The punches I found: 

      14 May 2017

      Retailer Under The Spotlight - The Agenda Shop

      A new type of post today featuring a new web retailer. 

      The Agenda Shop caters to A6 binder users, with printed inserts, dashboards, plastic card holder, folders, optional Tomoe river paper and more!

      I opened the shop to offer A6 users their own little corner of the web, where they can, hopefully, find everything they need without the stress of combing through 100's of planner shops in order to find the handful of A6 inserts offered (or most often, not offered).

      You can pick your paper type and customize your inserts, you probably wont need to though with all the different options and styles available. I just opened the shop, its pretty full now but I will continue to come out with new inserts and products regularly! 

      The webshop offers the largest variety of products but you can also find it on Etsy if you feel more comfortable buying there.

      Where to find The Agenda Shop:

      Webshop: www.TheAgendaShop.com - promo code PHILOFAXY10 only valid on the webshop
      Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/AgendaShop

      Facebook: www.facebook.com/theagendashop
      Instagram: www.Instagram.com/theagendashop

      Thank you phILOFAXY

      Mary DeTray











      We wish Mary all the best of luck with her new shop..

      Are you a small planner shop? Would you like to be featured on Philofaxy? Contact Steve: steve at philofaxy dot com 


      22 March 2017

      Van der Spek Senior Sizes

      A question that frequently comes up on the Facebook groups and in comments on previous blog posts is the differences in sizes of the Senior size in the Van der Spek range.

      There are effectively four possible combinations of size for the Senior size when ordered in a custom organiser:
      1. Un-widened with 20mm rings
      2. Un-widended with 25mm rings
      3. Widened with 20 mm rings
      4. Widened with 25 mm rings
      I have examples of 1 and 4 from the above list which we will show in a moment. Options 2 and 3 are actually quite close in overall size but differ in the spine thickness because of the different ring size. All four size options are the same height.

      Light brown 'Widened' 25mm above Black 'Un-widened' 20mm below

      Light brown 'Widened' 25mm above Black 'Un-widened' 20mm below

      So why un-widened and widened, let us get that out of the way first.... 

      Originally the Senior size was made to take inserts that are 95mm by 152mm in size. I'm not sure which company was the first to produce inserts in this size, but there are a few companies that use this size and make organisers or inserts for it. 

      Van der Spek can supply inserts in this size, therefore they wished to retain the option of organisers in the 95x152mm page size. 

      However,  this size isn't A6 size, A6 is 105mm by 148mm in size, so this is where the 'Widened' size comes from, it is effectively an increase of 10mm in width to accommodate the true width of A6 size inserts. 

      A6 inserts in the 'Widened' Senior with 25mm rings. No issues with tabs near the pen
      'Un-widened' can be made to work with A6 inserts if you either use top tabs, or keep the tab width down in size, but is it very close to the edge of the width of the organiser. 

      A6 inserts and dividers in the 'Unwidened' Senior with 20mm rings

      A6 inserts and dividers in the 'Unwidened' Senior with 20mm rings, notice how close the tabs are to the pen and the edge

      Some people prefer the slightly smaller size of the 'Un-widened' organisers as they are closer to the width of personal size but shorter. 

      Black Senior ('Un-widened') and Crimson Malden Personal size

      In the Touch Me range the Senior started off as option 1 (Un-widened with 20mm rings) With the introduction of the purple and light brown in 2015 these were made in the size of option 4 (widened with 25mm rings). 

      All of the current Touch Me range Seniors are now option 4 in size (Widened with 25mm rings) they are available in 5 colours all with two pen loops and 25mm Krause rings. 

      In the Custom organiser range you do have the option of any one of the four size combinations listed above.

      Finally for comparison purposes the Gillio A6 Compagna is a few mm narrower than the Van der Spek Senior  when made in Widened with 25mm rings format. This is because the Gillio only has 23 mm rings compared to the Van der Spek 25mm Krause rings. 

      If you have any additional questions please post them in the comments below.