Creating a binder with printable pages requires some supplies to get started. Some are pretty obvious, like a binder, paper and ink. Others not so much. A hole punch is the thing you need to bring it all together, but tend to forget about it in the search for the perfect binder and printer.

For the sake of our discussion we will consider punches capable of making 3 holes, to match your 3-ring binder. Our use case is to create a health journal, but a hole punch can be useful for many other small business, arts & crafts, and educational applications.

When selecting a hole punch consider how many page capacity it can accommodate. For the sake of making a health journal that you are printing as you go, this may not be a big deal, but depending on how frequently you print, this may become something that matters.

If you're printing pages and putting them right in the binder, then a smaller capacity can work since you are probably not punching through a ton of pages at a time. But if you are printing pages, filling them out (or having someone else fill them out), then archiving at a later time in the binder, a larger capacity hole-punch might make more sense since you will likely need to punch through more holes at a time. Of course, in either scenario and others, you may not care about this since the truth is it doesn't take a ton of time to punch a handful of pages.

There isn't much to hole punching. You line up the side of the page you want to punch the holes through and make sure it is flush against the back of punch, and in one swift movement move the lever down, and voila, holes!

Of course like anything else there are a few tips to remember, like if you try to punch too many pages with a smaller capacity punch, then it may not be easy to lower the lever which may cause incomplete or misaligned holes. These are things you will learn as you go.

Getting a punch that matches your needs matters, but luckily there is less need for a larger capacity hole punch since a health binder grows over time, only a few pages at a time.