Lined paper, wide ruled

Wide ruled is the default in American classrooms up to about eleven, and it is the one to print if you are not sure which you were asked for. The sixteenth of an inch it has over college ruled is the difference between handwriting that fits between the lines and handwriting that is squeezed into them.

The margin line is not decoration — it is where the date, the question number and a teacher's tick go. Keeping it at the same 1¼ inches as a notebook means a page printed here and a page torn out of the pad sit in the same folder without looking like two different things.

The rules are drawn as real strokes at real sizes — not a picture of lines, and not a background tint. That matters more than it sounds: browsers drop background graphics when printing unless the reader has gone looking for the setting, so ruled paper made the obvious way looks perfect on screen and comes out of the printer blank. Put a ruler on this one. It is the size it says it is.

This sheet is set for US Letter — 8.5 × 11 inches. Paper size is not a preference here: sent to a printer loaded with something else, the browser shrinks the page to fit, and a ruling that has been shrunk is no longer the size it was chosen for. So there is a second copy of this sheet, ruled identically and measured for A4.