Generate Squares or Rectangles

The two modes

Boxes of a set size. You say how big each box should be in millimetres and how many you want. Use this when the size matters — labels that have to fit a book spine, cards that have to fit a pocket, boxes sized to a child's handwriting.

Grid to fill the page. You say how many columns and rows, and the boxes are sized to fill the paper evenly. Use this when the size does not matter and you just want the page divided up — a six-box story planner, a 4×4 bingo card, a table to write into.

It checks that it fits

The line above the buttons always tells you what you are about to get: how many boxes per row, how many rows will fit on a page, how many pages, and how much of the page width a row uses.

If the boxes are too wide for the paper, it says so and offers the number that would fit, rather than quietly printing boxes that run off the right-hand edge. That mattered more than it sounds: at 48 mm wide, four across a portrait A4 page comes to 198 mm of the 200 mm available — it fits, but only just, and 50 mm boxes do not.

Sizes worth knowing

• Name labels for books and trays — about 60 × 20 mm, three per row.
• Word cards / flashcards — 60 × 40 mm, three per row. Big enough to read from a few desks away.
• Handwriting boxes for young children — 25 × 25 mm, seven per row. One letter to a box.
• Spelling practice — 48 × 20 mm, four per row, which is the default here.
• Cut-and-stick pieces — 45 × 45 mm squares, four per row, with the gap set to 4 mm so there is room for scissors.
• A story planner — grid mode, 2 columns by 3 rows.

A quick conversion if you think in inches: 25 mm is about 1 inch, so a 50 × 25 mm box is roughly 2 × 1 inches.

Things to set once and forget

• Page margin — 5 mm gives you the most boxes. Push it to 10 mm if your printer clips the edges, which many home printers do.
• Gap between boxes — 2 mm is fine for writing in. Go to 4–5 mm if the boxes are going to be cut out, so there is something to cut along.
• Line thickness — 0.3 mm is a normal pen line. Try 0.6 mm if very young children are cutting along it, or 0.15 mm if you want the lines faint so the writing stands out.
• Landscape gives you a wider row — 259 mm across an A4 instead of 200 mm — which is often the difference between four boxes and five.

Ways to use a sheet of empty boxes

• Spelling. One word per box, written three times. The boxes stop the writing sprawling.
• Sorting and matching. Print two sheets, write words on one and pictures on the other, cut both up.
• Bingo and lotto. Grid mode, 4 × 4, filled in by hand — the children can write their own, which is half the activity.
• Story planning. Six large boxes, one scene each, drawn before anything is written.
• Number work. Small squares as a blank hundred-square, or as place-value boxes.
• Labels. Trays, drawers, book bags, coat pegs.

Nothing leaves your browser

The PDF is built on your own device by JavaScript. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, nothing is stored, and there is no sign-up. Close the tab and it is gone — so download the file if you want to keep it.