This is probably the hardest category of planners to comprehensively discuss. There are literally hundreds of options available on the market including both dated and undated options. There are themed planners for moms, flower lovers, effin’ bird lovers, people with ADHD,  planners that focus on productivity, planners that focus on goal setting and some that are just pretty. If you have a particular interest, there’s probably a planner designed with your interest in mind.

These all-in-one planners often feature an overview calendar for the year, weekly or monthly pages and then some feature daily or weekly spreads. If you like the compact nature of having all the year neatly bound into a book, an all-in-one planner may be a good option.

Fountain pen compatibility is not the main focus for many of the all-in-one planners on the market so I am attempting to focus on options that are more likely to be fountain pen-friendly. There are so many all-in-one planners on the market that I needed a way to streamline this post or it would have gone on FOREVER.

That said, sometimes you just want the planner you want and, fountain pens be damned! So, where noted, I’ve included planners that might not be as fountain pen-friendly. These will give you a chance to put that stash of gel, brush, ballpoint and rollerball pens to use. Most planners include a few sheets of note paper in the back. Be sure to use a page to test the pens you want to use before starting to use your all-in-one planner.

I am dividing up our recommendations into hardbound/softbound options and spiral options and just featuring our best recommendations.

Hard Cover Options

The advantage of a hard- or softbound planner is the compact quality. If you commute back and forth, go out on job calls, travel for work or need a planner to occupy the least amount of space, a hard- or softbound planner is a great option.

The most Fountain Pen Friendly: Hobonichi Techo and Jibun Techo

By far the most talked-about planner in the fountain pen community is the Hobonichi Techo (starting at $42). Available in A6 and A5 sizes and a pocketable Weeks format, this fountain pen friendly daily planner includes monthly calendars in the front. The A5 also includes weekly planning pages. While the Tomoe River paper is hotly debated as the stock has been updated/changed over the last couple years, the Hobonichi is far and away some of the best paper for fountain pen ink.

Hobonichi also offers a wide array of cover options to personalize your A6, A5 or Weeks planner. The simple black softcover is classy and can be used without a cover if you prefer.

The Kokuyo Jibun Techo (starting at $35) is available in A5 and A5 Slim versions. The DAYS edition features a page-a-day while the standard versions are a vertical weekly planner. The covers are soft but a plastic cover protector is available to improve durability.

The DAYS version (starting at $6) is a page-a-day planner and is a good competitor to the Hobonichi Techo.

The A5 Slim standard version does require tiny writing to make use of the layout to its full effect. The paper is Kokuyo’s own lightweight paper, similar to Tomoe River. If what you’re looking for is fountain pen-friendly paper and portability, you can’t go wrong with the Jibun Techo.

Runner up: Stalogy

While the Stalogy Editor’s Series 365 (starting at $25) feels more like a notebook with undated pages, many consider it a planner for the calendar at the top of each page and the 365 pages included. The Stalogy notebooks with the date options at the top of the page are available in A5, A6, B5 and B6 with a softcover. In the US, A5 is the easiest size to find.

I tend to use the  Stalogy for journaling or meeting notes as it offers little in the way of pre-printed pages for year- or month-at-a-glance pages. The Stalogy website provides some templates and tips for making your own calendar page à la bullet journaling but if you’re looking for some of that work to be done for you, then the Stalogy is not for you. The paper is fountain pen-friendly.

The Classics:

When I think of all-in-one planners, my brain immediately goes to the classic Moleskine and Leuchtturm1917 daily and weekly planners. For many years, these were the go-to for a simple all-in-one planner. But the market has exploded and while these both continue to offer their original layouts, for many fountain pen enthusiasts, the paper just isn’t friendly enough.

The New Classic: Endless Recorder Planner

When it comes to the classic hardcover planner, there’s a new sheriff in town: The Endless Recorder Planner ($27.50 with black or beige cover) features their new flagship Regalia paper and a page-a-day layout as well as a year overview and monthly planning pages.

The Most Fun Planner: Brass Monkey Perpetual Late Show Planner

Color me biased but the folks at Brass Monkey (formerly the brains behind Easy Tiger here in KC) are witty with a serious dash of snark and an impeccable design aesthetic. That’s the perfect recipe for me. Their Perpetually Late Show Planner ($20) carries on the tradition of a planner packed with trivia and entertaining facts with space leftover for daily to-dos. The planner measure 6 x 9″ (slightly little larger than A5) with a fabric cover and is set up to be an undated planner so while the pages start in January, they leave it open for you to select the day of the week.

I can’t guarantee how fountain pen-friendly the paper is. Our previous tests with an earlier version of their planner was pretty good with a standard array of pens so I’m holding out hope for the Perpetually Late Show Planner to perform decently. Especially since I’m planning to order one for myself. Whether I start it this year or next — this is a planner I am going to need to own.

Runner-Up: Ink + Volt Goal Planner

The Ink + Volt Goal Planner ($49) focus on setting goals for the year, month and even a focus for the week.  Aesthetically, I find the simplicity and clean lines of the Ink + Volt planner a great starting point, whether your goal is to keep it simple or add your own creative embellishments. In the past, we’ve tested other Ink + Volt notebooks so the paper should be equally fountain pen friendly.

Spiral Options

One of the best things about a spiral bound planner (whether coil or spiral) is the ability to fold the planner in half. This will make these slightly bulkier planner fit more easily on your desk.

The Queen of Spiral Planners: Erin Condren

If you have been in the stationery community for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the name Erin Condren. The Erin Condren LifePlanner (starting at $60 for the original 7 x 9″ version) took the world by storm several years ago and practically single-handedly reinvigorated the planner industry. From Erin Condren came Happy Planner, Emily Ley, and many others. The Erin Condren planners and her competitors create bright, colorful planners that tend to cross the line between planner and scrapbook with stickers, washi and lots of decorative plusses.  Erin Condren offers licensed cover designs from Hello Kitty, Disney as well as beautiful painted options. There are customizing options like adding your name to the cover to choosing from three weekly layout spreads. The paper is 80# text so it should handle most pens. Our previous experience with Erin Condren was the Focused Productivity Planner and the paper quality was not great. I am not sure if the latest iterations have improved paper but the appeal of this planner collection is the layouts, color and the cult of Erin Condren more so than the paper quality.

Most Customizable Options: Agendio and Golden Coil

We have been long-term friends with the folks at Agendio (starting at $47) and now there is Golden Coil (starting at $70). Both companies offer an array of customizing options so if a bound planner appeals to you but you’ve like to build it yourself, its definitely worth spending some time on both of these sites to decide which system might work best for you. Agendio offers three different paper weights. The thickest is 120gsm/80# text which is the only paper weight option available from Golden Coil.

Both Agendio and Golden Coil offer options to add custom events and dates (you can pre-load your pages with birthdays, recurring events and holidays) as well as dozens of page layouts for monthly, weekly and daily pages. Agendio offers editable fields to further customize sections within the planner and even offers inserts to fit a Filofax or other binder.

Spiral Runner Up: Get To Work Book

This hefty Get to Work Book planner ($55) is aesthetically stunning and includes all the monthly and weekly pages as well as action-oriented goal planning in a sturdy, simple black cover. This is less blingy than the Erin Condren-style planners and perfect for the minimalist with maximal plans. There are no specifics on the paper stock, hence, the runner-up position.

Conclusion:

By no means is this all, or even some, of the all-in-one planners currently available. Did I forget your favorite all-in-one planner? If so, leave it in the comments.

For more planner recommendations, check out The Strategist, Marie Claire and SPY for even more recommendations.

DISCLAIMER: The item in this review include affiliate links. The Well-Appointed Desk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Please see the About page for more details.

The post A Deep Dive into All-In-One Planners appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.

There are so many potential options for a “Parker-style” refill (which annoyingly enough is also referred to as a G2 though it is not necessarily compatible with a PILOT G2 style pen). The G2 refill is 98mm long and approx 5.8mm diameter on the main barrel.

Parker Style Refills

Here’s a list of most (but probably not all) of the Parker-style refills:

• Diplomat EasyFLOW Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Faber-Castell Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Faber-Castell Scribero Gel Ink Roller Refill
• Fisher Space Pen Refill, PR Series- Colors (Bold, Medium, Fine)
• Fisher Space Pen – Universal Ballpoint Refill
• Foray (Office Depot) Ballpoint Refill for Parker (Medium)
• Itoya Aquaroller Refill (0.7 and 1.0mm)
• Kaweco Soul G2 Refill 1.0mm
• Kaweco Sport Roller Ball Pen Refill
• Moleskine Ballpoint Refill
• Moleskine Gel Refill (0.5 and 0.7 mm)
• Moleskine Roller Gel Fluorescent Refills
• Monteverde Ceramic Gel Refill (Broad)
• Monteverde Needle Point Refill (Fine)
• Monteverde Soft Roll- Colored inks (Medium)
• Monteverde Soft Roll- (Superbroad, Medium, Ultrafine)
• OHTO Needlepoint Ballpoint Pen Refill PS-807NP
• OHTO PS-205NP Extra-Fine 0.5mm Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Parafernalia Ballpoint Pen Refill NO LOGO
• Parker Ballpoint Pen Refill (Broad, Medium, Fine)
• Parker GEL Ballpoint Pen Refill (Medium)
• Parker Quinkflow Ballpoint Pen Refill (Medium, Fine)
• Pelikan Giant Ballpoint Pen Refill 337 (Broad, Fine, Medium)
• Pentel KFLT8 Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Platignum Standard Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Premec Parker-Style G2 Gel Refill (0.4, 0.5 and 0.7 mm)
• Retro 51 Tornado Roller Ball Refills (REF5P) (Made by Schmidt)
• Schmidt 9000M EasyFlow Pen Refill
• Schmidt P8126 Capless Rollerball (Fine)
• Schmidt P8900 Super Bowl Refill (Fine)
• Schmidt P900 B Ballpoint Pen Refill (Broad, Medium, Fine)
• Schmidt P950M Megaline Pressurized Ballpoint Pen Refill (Medium)
• Schneider Express 735 Pen Refill (Broad, Medium, Fine)
• Schneider Slider 755 Pen Refill (Extra-Broad, Medium)
• STABILO EASYgel Refill
• Stabilo Ballpoint Refill
• Tombow BR-ZLM Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Visconti Ballpoint Pen Refill AA49 1.4 (Broad)
• Visconti Gel Refill (Broad, Medium, Fine)

Mike Rohde of Sketchnoting fame hacked a Pentel Energel refill (normally a Pilot G-2 sized refill) to fit into his Retro 51 by trimming the end of the refill to be the right size. If you’re willing to experiment, other refills might also survive this sort of hack. I’ve hacked the end off a few refills in my time to make them fit as well. Just grab a craft or utility knife or a sturdy pair of scissors, line up the old refill and the new refill and snip. Voila.

If you love a particular sort of pen refill, you can also lengthen a refill that’s too short by adding a bit of plastic tubing to the end of the barrel. The fine folks at Karas Kustoms provide a length of plastic tubing with their Render K, RETRAKT and BOLT pens that could be used with other brands as well or you could snip off a section of an empty plastic refill to length a new refill to fit.

The best source I found for ALL the Parker-style refills was Cult Pens in the UK. They stock over 30 different styles of Parker-style refills.  Another option is Refill Finder.

G2/Schmidt/Euro Rollerball (and similar) Refills:

The Euro G2-style refill (very similar to the Pilot G2 but not always the same because of the plastic housing around the metal tip shaft). In some pens with enough clearance, they can be interchanged but of your pen has tight interior clearance, some Japanese refills (highlighted in orange) will not be interchangeable with the European counterparts.

Also described as the Schmidt/Euro Rollerball refill size are about 110mm long:

• Caran d’Ache Fibre Tip Refill
• Caran d’Ache Rollerball Refill
• Faber-Castell Rollerball Pen Refill
• Faber-Castell Fineliner Pen Refill
• FORAY (Office Depot) Pen Refill For Schmidt Rollerball
• Kaweco “soul” refill G2
• Kaweco G2 Gel Roller Pen Refill
• Hi-Tec-C Cavalier refill
• Monteverde Fineliner Refill G52
• Monteverde Ceramic Rollerball Refill W22
• Monteverde Spring-Loaded Tip Fineliner Refill G62
• OHTO Ceramic Rollerball Pen Refill
• OHTO F-300 Fude Refill Black
• Pentel LR7 Energel
• Pilot Frixion Erasable Gel
• Pilot Juice (removed from plastic retractable pen)
• Pilot G2
• Pilot LP2RF Gel Refill (Juice refill code)
• Premec Roller Refill (0.5mm and 0.7mm)
• Schmidt Capless Rollerball 8126 and 8127 (shorter models can work with an extension hack)
• Schmidt 6040 FineLiner refill
• Schmidt 888 Safety Rollingball Ceramic Plastic refill
• Schmidt 5888 Safety RollingBall Ceramic Metal Tube refill
• Schmidt 5285 Safety Rolling Tube Needlepoint Tip
• Schneider Topball 850 Pen Refill
• Schneider Topliner 970 Pen Refill
• Sheaffer Fineliner Refill
• Visconti Rollerball Pen Refill AA40 0.7
• Zebra JT refill
• Zebra Sarasa Clip refill (removed from plastic retractable pen)

Using a spring around the tip of the refill will help to stabilize these. Use either the spring provided by your pen manufacturer or steal one from a retractable plastic pen body to get the perfect fit.

Cult Pens has a great selection of these refills in their “Euro Refills” section.

Pilot Hi-Tec C Refills:

The Pilot Hi-Tec C style refills list doesn’t look as extensive as the other refill styles but the Hi-Tec C line has a huge assortment of color options and tip widths to provide quite a variety. The Pilot Hi-Tec C refills can be purchased individually or liberated from any Pilot Hi-Tec C pen including the Maica line.

• Pilot Hi-Tec C (available in 0.25, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5)
• Pilot G-Tec C (same as the Hi-Tec C but renamed for the American/European market)
• Uni-ball Signo UM-100 Gel
• Uni-ball Signo DX UM-151 Gel
• Uni-ball Signo Broad UM-153 Gel

I’ve found that the Uni-Ball Signo refills may need to be trimmed slightly to fit but they work great. Just use scissors, a craft knife or blade to shorten the length to match the original length. I liberate Signo refills from plastic pens found around my office as well as occasionally purchasing proper refills.

D1 Refills:

Then there’s the D1 sized refills. These are the super slender and used in multi-pens and mini pens. The Sharbo-X is a great example as is the Retro 51 Tornado Touch.

The D-1 mini refills are about 66-67mm long and there are quite a few refill styles to fit into these pens:

• Acme Black 4FP Four-Function Pen Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Acme Highlighter 4FP Four-Function Pen Multi Functional Pen Refill
• Aurora Mini Medium Point Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Caran D’ache Ecridor XS Mini Refill
• Cross Matrix Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Cross Micro Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Kaweco D1 Soul Ballpoint Refill
• Monteverde Soft Roll Ballpoint Pen Refill – D1 (628)
• Ohto R-4C7NP Needle-Point Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Parker Mini Ballpoint Refills
• Parker Vector 3-in-1 Ballpoint Refills
• Pelikan 38 Ballpoint Refills
• Pilot BRF-8M Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Platinum BSP-60 Series
• Platinum BSP-100
• Retro 1951 D-1 Ballpoint Refill
• Rotring Tikky 3-in-1 2-Color Ballpoint Refills
• Tombow VS Ballpoint Pen Refill – D1
• Uni SXR-200 Jetstream Ballpoint Multi Pen Refill (0.5 and 0.7mm)
• Zebra 4C-0.7 Ballpoint Pen Refill
• Zebra Sharbo X Ballpoint Multi Pen Refill Component – D1
• Zebra Sharbo X Gel Ink Multi Pen Refill Component (0.4 and 0.5mm) – D1

Another option to consider:

Tofty on Shapeways creates 3D printed sleeves for many proprietary refills that allow you to use a D1 refill instead of the harder to find Lamy, Diplomat, Caran d’Ache and others. He will also work to make a custom 3D printed sleeve to meet your needs if you email him directly. I’ve ordered several pieces from him and they work really well and have allowed me to use the Zebra Sharbo-X extra fine gel refills in my Fisher Space Pens. This is 21st century pen hacking at its finest!

Big thank you to my pal Dan for giving me a list as a starting point. Thanks to The Pen Place in Kansas City for letting me try out lots of refills. The rest of my info came from Jet Pens, Cult Pens and Refill Finder.

Monteverde is modifying some of their refills to fit pens with more proprietary sizes like Lamy. Lamy is the most finicky of all the pens. If you have good alternatives for refills for Lamy rollerball and ballpoint pens, let me know.

Don’t forget to check your local office supply or pen store (even those big box shops) and play around with the pens and refills you have. You’d be surprised what might work.

I’m working on a handy printable pocket guide of all these pen refill options but I want to make sure I haven’t left anything out or gotten anything wrong. So let me know which of these refills work for you and which don’t.

Note: I have not tried EVERY refill with every pen so your results might vary. Please leave notes in the comments about your favorite pen and refill combination for other readers. Thanks!

The post The Epic Refill Reference Guide: Rollerball, Gel and Ballpoints appeared first on The Well-Appointed Desk.