Most people buy a cover for the notebook they already have. One book goes in, the elastic goes round, done. That is a perfectly good way to use it and most of our covers live exactly like that. The same elastic system already fits two or three thin notebooks, depending on their thickness, if that is what you need.
But every so often someone writes to ask what a trifold changes when a standard cover already carries two or three notebooks. The way it works is worth explaining, because it changes what the object is.
What the trifold actually does
A standard cover uses a modular elastic system and carries two or three thin notebooks, depending on their thickness. A trifold uses the same notebook system and adds a panel that wraps around the whole stack and closes over the edge.
Inside, the notebooks are held by elastics running down the fold, same as a standard cover. Each notebook sits on its own elastic. Add elastics, add notebooks.
Why anyone would want three
Because notebooks are bad at being more than one thing. The moment you try to keep a work log, a private journal and a list of things to buy in the same book, all three get worse.
Running them as separate blocks in one cover fixes that without carrying three objects. A common setup is one book for daily entries, one for planning, one thin one for lists that get thrown away every couple of months. When the thin one is full, you pull it out and slide in a new one. The other two stay where they are.
You can also reorder them. The book you are using most goes on the outside where it opens fastest. That sounds trivial until you have done it.
Where the limit is
Honestly: three A6 blocks sit comfortably in a trifold. Three A5 blocks work if they are thin. Beyond that the cover stops closing flat and starts to look like a bag, and the elastic pressure on the outer books gets uneven.
If you want more than that, or your notebooks are an unusual thickness, we cut the cover for it rather than pretending the standard one will cope. Extra holes and extra elastics get added at the cutting stage, not afterwards. That is the difference between a cover that holds four notebooks and a cover with four notebooks stuffed into it.
About the elastic
Two millimetres. Thin enough to sit flat against the leather instead of denting it, thick enough not to stretch out and go slack after a season.
Choose an elastic colour to match the leather or deliberately clash with it. A spare comes with every order, because the elastic is the one part that will eventually wear out while the leather is still fine.
How to set one up
If you are starting from scratch, a workable approach:
- Pick the size from your main notebook, not from the others.
- Keep one block thin and disposable. It absorbs the mess so the others stay readable.
- Do not fill all the slots on day one. Systems that start full stop being systems.
- Give it a month before you decide the order is wrong.
If your setup is not standard
Send the dimensions and the thickness of the notebooks you want to carry, and how many. We cut to that. We make these covers after you order and confirm the timing for your request. Ready to Ship covers are already finished.
The custom size page is the shortest route.