Q&A: What Is Seyes Paper?

It is a question that many, if not most people, will ask when confronted by these strange rulings – what is seyes paper? In short, Seyes paper (also known as Grands Carreaux) is a very specialised paper ruling that is found in France. It forms an integral part of how French schoolchildren are taught to write, and yet to anyone not familiar with the Seyes format it can appear quite daunting. Hopefully this short article will explain all and also show how you can use the introductory books to ease someone into learning to use Seyes paper and gain consistency with their handwriting.

Seyes paper was originally created in the late nineteenth century by Jean-Alexandre Seyès, a librarian, and his system has been adopted and stuck, so much so that the paper ruling is named after him. I can’t say for certainty that every child going through the French education system learns to write using Seyes paper but it is extremely well known and, from personal experience of the system, it does produce consistent results.

So the obvious question is how do you use it? It’s like there is a hidden code and in a sense there is.

• Seyes paper is made up of vertical and horizontal lines.
• There is also a mix of bold and feint lines. Bold lines are every 8mm, feint lines every 2mm
• Within the lines an 8mm grid is formed from the bold horizontal lines and the vertical lines
• The pages will typically also have a margin in red

So to explain how these work, it is easier to ignore the vertical lines for the moment. Look at the horizontal lines. What you now have is a series of lines every 2mm – one bold then three feint, repeated. You treat the bold horizontal lines as your ‘writing’ line, the base line for your letters.

There are rules for which letters go where, and this is where the French system becomes harder to follow as they have a particular style of writing each letter, which I personally found quite hard. A simplified version of this might be as follows:

• Upper case letters (A, B, C etc) start on the base line and go up to the third feint line;
• Lower case letters (a, c, e etc) start on the base line, and go up to the first 2mm line;
• Lower case letters with a vertical stem (b, d, f, h, k, l) are formed by taking the stem up to the third feint line;
• Letters like an ‘i’ and ‘t’ go up to the second feint line;
• Letters that drop below the line (g, j, p, q, y) sit on the base line and drop down two feint lines.

We offer a range of notebooks and pads with Seyes rulings from Clairefontaine, the largest of French stationery manufacturers. Within their range they offer a set of six exercise books that help take someone through to the standard Seyes ruling. Learning to start writing on an 8mm grid with 2mm rulings would be almost impossible so these books are the perfect way to gradually introduce the various elements of Seyes paper in stages.

You can read more about how these books work by using our handy guide here.