Last year we recommended to you our faithful and loyal customers, a fantastic Christmas gift idea; the Christmas Hamper. However we ended up inundated with people looking for Christmas Hamsters! So today we yet again bring you the announcement that Office 365 sell gorgeous Christmas Hampers, the perfect gift for staff, clients and customers with plenty of different options to choose from. But please, if you’re looking for the perfect Christmas Hamster, you’ll need to go to your local pet shop! I really don’t think you’re child would be particularly pleased with a basket filled with nice grub instead of their new squeaky friend, just as Vice Versa, I’m not sure what your clients would think if you bought them a hamster?  We are Office 365 for a reason, buy your animals elsewhere!

This year instead of offering you ready made hampers, we’re giving you the chance to create your own! All you need to do is find the box or basket that you’d like to present the goodies in and we’ll do the rest. Take your pick from a large variety of different goodies and treats that would put a smile o the face of any recipient. But what’s more, it doesn’t even have to be a food hamper, take a look at your options;

• Food – Choose from items such as Cadbury’s chocolate fingers, Cadbury’s biscuit selection, Crawford’s biscuits, Fox’s biscuits, Fair-trade biscuits and many more from Maryland, McVities, Oreo, Go-Ahead and Traidcraft. We also have various different chocolates and sweets available from Cadbury’s, Divine, Fox’s, Mars, Mentos, Nestle and Twix. Finally select from various different hot and cold beverages and you have the perfect hamper selection!
• Stationery – Why not create the perfect hamper for your child starting school, college or university, or indeed the ideal hamper selection for your friend or loved one starting their new job? Select from a wide variety of pens, paper, rulers, ink, pads, envelopes, labels, files, pockets, diaries and calendars. With a great selection of all these bits and pieces, your child, friend or loved one can be all prepared for the year ahead!
• The Clean Freak – Do you have a Mr Muscle in the family, or maybe a washer woman? Do you know someone close to you who just loves to clean? Then why not buy them their dream cleaning hamper collection? Choose from various kitchen and bathroom cleaning products, towels, polishes, bin liners and so much more, what a treat!..

You get the idea; at Office 365 you can tailor the hamper to the individual, you just need a touch of imagination and a box or basket. If you’d like some help choosing or are in need of more information, please get in touch, we’re always happy to help! – 0870 766 1624

As a student the amount of paper you can go through in a term is really quite astonishing! For every subject you learn you will have a separate ring binder or lever arch file fully loaded with ruled paper for making notes, writing coursework and completing essays. In fact I remember it well; almost weekly I’d be buying more ruled refill pads, it was simply ridiculous! It seems that it’s no different in the office either. Ruled paper is used is every area of the office, normally with a pad per desk for note taking during telephone calls, for bullet points during meetings, for jotting down relevant information when dealing with customer and client relations, queries and complaints; the list is endless! So what we all seem to be looking for is a cheap supplier who can keep our cupboards laden with luscious lined A4 refill pads and at a cost which will make this endless demand less of a ‘pinch’ pocket wise.

Here at Office 365, if you’re looking for value, there’s no brand better than 5 Star, and we have plenty of different 5 Star products to offer! Let’s face it; if you’re looking for lined paper it will be for the general uses mentions above, or similar, so why opt for the more expensive brands? 5 Star ruled refill pads like the one featured, will do all that is required of a note ‘taking paper’ and will stand up to the test for students work too! This particular pad boasts;

• Refill pads in a headbound format with a durable cloth binding
• Backboard provides additional rigidity and support
• 60gsm white paper
• Four-hole punched
• 160 pages per pad
• Feint ruled with margin
• Size: A4 (297 x 210mm)
• Packed 10
• 81% off – Now just £7.49! (while stocks last)

5 Star products are now firmly established as one of the best-known office products brands in the UK and with 15 years experience behind them, they are now experts in their field and even offer a 12 month no quibble quality guarantee! They deliver unbeatable price and quality, across the most popular everyday product lines, plus they’re also one of the most widely available ranges of office products. With over 22,000 products on offer, our customers are always happy with the selection as well as the value of the items they are ordering.

Each 5 Star product now has attractively designed packaging for clearer product display and product information, plus they also have a fantastic choice of ‘Green’ options for those who are economically aware.

Practical, perfect white paper,

Is peachy for practicing poems,

Pick up a page and preach with your pen,

Part with your pride for the power!

We use paper everyday unknowingly! That may sound strange, but do we ever realise what we’re doing when we’re scribbling down notes, doodling and taking messages? The act of grabbing a scrap piece or sheet of paper is almost unconscious; we can certainly say we take paper for granted! It important however to appreciate its source; we destroy many, many trees every day so that we can have the paper we use without even thinking about it! It’s also quite surprising how big an impact and how much of an impression the quality of paper can have. Thinner, budget paper is all well and good for everyday printing, notes, messages and your kids art, but when you’re presenting an important document, a legal document, an invitation or a letter, quality is extremely important! It’s always better in these instances to go for a thicker option, say 90gsm paper, giving a more firm, smooth and white finish.

Our Color Copy A4 White Copier Paper featured to the right, fits the entire bill! Not only does this paper boast premium quality and super smooth texture, but it’s also environmentally friendly too!

• A range of superior smooth colour laser papers with excellent whiteness designed specifically for use on colour laser printers and copiers
• Ideal for brochures, reports and presentations with the card weights being the perfect choice for report covers and business cards
• Produced using FSC certified fibre from well-managed forests independently certified according to the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council
• Guaranteed for use on mono and colour laser printers and copiers
• 90gsm
• Size: A4
• Packed: 500 sheets
• 66% off! Now just £8.79 a ream!

Color Copy is a brand of paper brought to us by The Robert Horne Group who were founded in London back in 1925 by Mr Robert Horne (of course!). The group has since grown to be the UK’s leading supplier of paper, board and plastics. The company are committed to taking all reasonable steps to fulfil their duties through economically, environmentally and socially sustainable means. They will endeavour to conduct all their activities with integrity and demonstrate the highest ethical standards in any dealings with all stakeholders. Color copy paper guarantees usability on all mono and colour laser printers and is able to boast FSC mixed sources SGS-COC-0912. The fibre used to make their paper is Virgin wood fibre from South Africa, South America, Scandinavia and Europe and the pulp is bleached using an Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) process. Disposal of the paper can be done through either recycling or incineration for energy.

The Robert Horne Environmental Initiatives

• ISO14001 at Northampton Head Office and National Distribution Centre
• FSC Chain of Custody (SGS-COC-000912)
• PEFC Chain of Custody (SGS-PEFC/COC-0104)
• The only major paper merchant to be a member of the WWF-UK Forest & Trade Network
• Committed to a policy of responsible paper purchasing
• Comprehensive supplier evaluation process, supported by a robust database of environmental product information
• Unrivalled choice of recycled-content and FSC or PEFC certified products
• Committed to a policy of Corporate Social Responsibility
• Environmental Manager available for help and advice
• Committed to a policy of energy efficiency and carbon reduction
• yoyo ‘closed loop’ office paper recycling service
• Waste recycling scheme for Sign and Display materials

We are always happy to be supporting a company who do good in this world and the Robert Horne Group are certainly able to say they do their bit. The brand are proud to support Childline as its nominated charity.

Although A4 is our standard ISO paper size and the most commonly used for most applications, A5 sized paper is a close follower. Popular among schools, offices and homes, A5 paper is perfect for a range of different uses and is also the most commonly found size in notepads and pocket books. Measuring 148 × 210 millimeters or 5.83 × 8.27 inches, A5 paper’s dimensions in PostScript are rounded off to 420 × 595 points and is also sometimes referred to as DIN A5. More often than not used for flyers and leaflets, but also for making greetings cards, A5 paper is highly adaptable. Businesses may find it beneficial to order large quantities of A5 Paper, a good quality printer and to print up their own flyers. This is a good way to cut marketing costs and also printing costs. Another budget yet quality idea would be to print your companies letterhead on the paper for all non-formal communications, this will look both professional and impressive yet would cost you less than having them printed professionally.

Our favorite A5 paper is this Data Copy 80gsm A5 White Paper featured to your right. Featuring;

• The everyday paper you need to keep all your office equipment working hard
• No messing with the easy to open box
• Ideal for volume copying and printing, everyday correspondence, reports and presentations
• Smooth, white paper that gives you great results every time, whether in colour or black and white
• All boxes have the comfy Grab-and-Go handle (excluding four-hole punched)
• 80gsm
• Size: A5 (297 x 210)
• White
• Packed: 500 sheets
• Environmentally friendly – Forest Stewardship Council
• 63% off! Now just £5.21!

The Data Copy brand manufactures paper under the umbrella company, Talk Paper who were formed in 2002 from the merger of MoDo Office and County Paper. Their wholly owned dedicated logistics provider boasts 16 distribution locations around the country, including two central distribution centres and the 14 regional distribution centres throughout the UK and Ireland. The brand was UK’s first dedicated national office paper merchant and are a direct subsidiary of the largest paper merchandising group in Europe – Antalis. Talk Paper are proud to be the only office paper merchant to hold the prestigious Royal Warrant to supply Her Majesty The Queen.

The Data Copy range gives brilliant results on all the latest office equipment – colour, black-and-white, inkjet and laser. The Data Copy Colour Printing paper is an amazingly white and amazingly smooth paper which is perfect for presentations, reports and colour coverage. It produces sharp images and bright colours while giving brilliant results on all colour office printing.

It can be difficult getting to grips with our ‘A’ paper formats, especially when you’re used to them being referred to as something else! So if your finding it difficult grasping our paper sizes, read on and I will do my very best to explain. A4 and the other A paper formats are based on metric measurements, with an A0 piece of paper equalling one meter squared. A0 format paper folded in half is then equal to the next size down, A1. A1 format paper folded in half is then equal to its next size down, A2 , and so on, so forth until you reach size A6. All these ‘A’ paper formats have a height to width ratio of 1.414:1.The international paper size standard (ISO 216) is based on the German DIN 476 standard for paper sizes. ISO sizes are all based on quite simply, the single aspect ratio of square root of 2. A4 (210 × 297 mm) is the most frequently used paper format.

To summarise, the ISO 216 definition of ‘A’ paper formats is based on the following:

• The length divided by the width is 1.4142
• The A0 format has an area of 1 square metre.
• Each subsequent format ‘A’ is defined as ‘A’ cut in half parallel to its shorter sides.
• The standard length and width of each size is rounded to the nearest millimetre.

Our most popular papers are the A3 and A4 format papers which we have available from both budget brands and the highest quality brands. Choose from glossy paper to card, water marked to specialist, listing paper to blotting paper, the choice is yours. So for your pick of the best A4 Paper and A3 Paper at the lowest prices on the net, come and take a peek at what we have on offer. Take a look at the chart below for a guide to ‘A’ format papers measurements.

We’re nearly there now, just 2 weeks to go before the magical day itself. But as my parents say, ‘Christmas doesn’t just happen you know’. It’s not just ‘Santa’ who puts those pressies under the tree (as I’m sure you all know); a lot of hard work goes into choosing those presents, finding the time to do so and of course wrapping them all up! Now I know it’s not all about the presents. In my house, that’s just the start of it; it’s the whole day itself, in fact the week before and the week after it too. Presents are just our way of showing love, appreciation and a fantastic way to start the Christmas day fun!!

With 2 weeks left, most of us (aside from myself *cringe*) will have pretty much finished the Christmas shopping and will just be left with a mountain of gifts to lovingly (or hurriedly) wrap. You will need to get organised and prepare yourself with plenty of packaging materials. Think – disguising obvious presents, think – protecting breakables, think – wrapping to perfection. Office 365 are your one stop shop for office and stationery supplies, but also exceed expectations when it comes to Christmas present wrapping materials too! One of the most important tools in the art of wrapping is of course sticky tape – you’d be surprised at how many people forget this useful household treasure. We have a huge selection of different sized boxes for disguising and protecting and for wrapping your items to perfection. For those extremely breakable items, don’t let them be ruined before they’ve even been opened, take a look at our bubble wrap supplies. A fantastic tip which comes in useful for me year after year is to keep your Christmas cards. That way, when it comes to gift tags, all you have to do is cut of the front of last year’s cards and apply tape or string so that they can be fastened to the present. Brilliant – simply write on the reverse. Lastly but not at all least, is wrapping paper. Go for the traditional look and let the labels do the work. Our selection of strong kraft paper is perfect for present wrapping, adding a touch of olden day charm and class to the stack under your tree. Either fasten with string & twine so that they recipient can re-use the paper, or if you’re in a hurry, stick it.

We’re not just here to provide our homes and businesses with office supplies; our range of stationery supplies is increasing by the day to incorporate more and more everyday items that we all could use.

It’s not easy to keep your staff happy and working to the best of their ability. As an employer you must not only manage your staff and be an excellent communicator, but you must also be able to keep your team driven and feeling valued. One of the best ways to keep your office motivated is to take part in seasonal celebrations. Let’s face it; it’s not easy going into work over the Christmas season and as Christmas day draws nearer and nearer, we all tend to want to be with our families and friends celebrating. However if you bring a little Christmas into the office, your staff we feel as though they are celebrating the moment too. Have you ever worked in an office where the decorations where adequate for such an occasion? More often than not, offices are decorated with very little in the way of holiday decorations; however we can help you make a tree which will be sure to impress even the most demanding of Christmas enthusiasts.

You Will Need

• Christmas tree – artificial is best
• Paper clips
• Various other office supplies
• CD’s
• Shredded Paper

Firstly you will need to put together your tree using the instructions provided. Remember, the best time to add lights on any Christmas tree is now. It is pretty much impossible to add lights in an effective way when you have already loaded the tree with decorations.

Next you will need to decide on an object to go on top of the tree which is symbolic to your office, some kind of mascot maybe. This would have been hopeless in the case of one of my previous jobs; our office mascot was my 2 year old daughter! Take a look around the office, maybe there’s a teddy that you all believe brings you luck, a stapler which has been lost and found a ridiculous amount of times and has become some kind of a joke, or maybe there’s a giant rubber band ball which everyone has been adding too. Whatever seems appropriate for your office, use it. You may need to use paper clips to help secure your object to the top of the tree.

Your next stage would be to decorate your tree with a tinsel substitute, remember, this is an office Christmas tree. You could link paper clips to make shiny silver chains or join CD’s using rubber bands to make a giant shiny length of tinsel. Alternatively, cut sticky strips from Post-it Notes to make paper chains (this works best with various different coloured Post-it Notes). Drape your tinsel substitutes around the tree making sure to evenly cover the tree.

Using paper clips or tape, hang various office products from your tree as bauble substitutes. Use items such as staple removers, pens, staple strips, rubber stamps, glue sticks, you get the idea. You could even go all out there and throw on some shredded paper or hole punch confetti as artificial snow.

Last but not least stick some pressies under the tree. Maybe you could organise some kind of secret Santa where everyone picks a name out of a hat and buys a present (up to a certain value) for that person. Your tree is now complete – enjoy!

The paper clip is a clever and underestimated little device found in most premises across the world which holds several sheets of paper together by means of pressure (among other uses). It leaves the paper intact and can be easily removed. But who invented this simple, very basic yet irreplaceable tiny wire loop? It turns out that over a short space of time, there were many claims for the invention of the paper clip, however according to the Early Office Museum, the first patent for a bent wire paper clip was awarded in the United States to Samuel B. Fay, in 1867. The clip was actually intended for attaching tickets to fabric, although the patent acknowledged that it could also be used to attach papers together. Fay received U.S. patent 64,088 on April 23, 1867. Another prominent paper clip design was also patented in the United States by a man named Erlman J. Wright in 1877. This clip was intended at that time for use with fastening newspapers.

The paper clip gradually evolved to fill the specific need of fastening large amounts of paper in order to hold sheets together. Binding was not a practical solution for keeping just a few sheets together, such as a short set of documents or receipts. Considering paper was invented sometime in the first century A.D., people managed to make do without anything like our modern paper clip until the end of the nineteenth century. Other methods of fastenings sheets included a ‘slit’ method where pages were cut in the corner, making two short parallel slits. Ribbon or string could then be threaded through these slits and the ends tied and sealed with wax. Another method was to use a straight pin and ‘pin’ the sheets together. However the slit method and the pin method both had one unavoidable drawback: the paper had to be pierced. Pin holes caused less wear on paper than slits, however if pages needed to be added or removed many times, the pinned area would be subject to a lot of wear, leading to drooping or tearing. Another drawback to the pin method was its basic nature of being sharp, which inevitable pricked many fingers over the years. Pins also tended to rust if left in place for long periods of time.

Paper clips today are a 100% reusable item, unfortunately however, many see the inside of a bin way before their time. Many recycling schemes are put into place where paper clips are required to be removed before paper is put into recycling bins. Some recyclers use metal detecting equipment which can separate staples and paper clips, enabling these items to be recycled separately. Interestingly, one paper clip industry study estimated that the vast percentage of paper clips were never used as intended (to hold paper) but instead were bent and destroyed to be used as cleaning or prying instruments. A paper clip is also a useful accessory in many kinds of mechanical work including computer work, where the metal wire is required to be unfolded. There are several devices which call for a very thin rod to push a recessed button (usually to reset the device) which the user might only rarely need. There is also the rather crude use for a paper clip involving unfolding and twisting the wire to pick locks, however we at Office 365 do not want to be seen to encourage this activity with the paper clips we sell, unless in an emergency! As paper clips are inexpensive to both manufacture and to buy; most are not re-used or recycled but are unfortunately just thrown away. Let’s hope that with recent recognition of our planets economical state, that we are all being far more responsible when it comes to the recycling of our paper clips.

The most commonly purchased paper is white A4 80gsm copier paper. However many purchase this without a clue of what it actually means. In the paper industry, the abbreviation ‘gsm’ stands for “grams per square meter.” So a square meter of each specific type of paper will weigh a certain number of grams. By grading paper in this way, we are able to know how dense our paper is, which is a good indication of its quality.

The gsm and quality of paper can vary from brand to brand, however there are some common paper examples which never change. A perfect example would be the telephone book or the yellow pages which is normally about 60gsm. You will find that most copier paper is around 80 gsm, however inkjet paper can vary from 120-310gsm as it must be of a higher absorbency. For the same reason, photo printing paper is normally about 250gsm.

Did you know?

According to AviationExplorer.com, “a sheet of office-quality 80 gsm photocopier/laser printer paper, for example, has the in-scale strength of aircraft-grade aluminium,”

Copier paper is like gold dust in the office. It is in constant demand and required consistently throughout the day. When it runs out, all hell breaks loose. Maybe it’s time your office considered some kind of policy for using copier paper. We all seem to be on a budget at this moment of economic crisis, so maybe we should be limiting the use of copier paper. Start by encouraging employees to print on the reverse of used paper when making copies for their own personal use. Explain that when beginning a large printing job, they must first print off a test sheet. It can be so wasteful when 100 copies have been printed, all misaligned or illegible.

Make sure your office has an allocated space for the storage of your copier paper, ideally close to the photocopier for ease of use. Alternatively, store it in a cupboard somewhere else making sure to leave just a few reams close to hand. Equally important, make sure you check the paper inside your copier regularly. Your copier uses huge quantities of paper so you should check the machine’s supply daily to be sure that there is enough in the machine. If you’re doing a large print job, check your machine first, you don’t want to run out half way.

When training your staff about paper usage, make sure to explain to them how to insert paper. Each machine varies and so be sure that each member of staff understands how your copier works. Assuming they know can often cause mistakes, machine errors, jamming and misprints.

Keep a close eye on your paper supply; it is vital that you do not run out! Always ensure that you order paper within enough time so that it is received before you run out. Also, buying in bulk will save time and money. The more paper you buy, the less it cost’s per ream, just ask for a quote!

When shopping for paper, you can come across many different sizes and specifications which you may not be familiar with. For example, A3 paper which is commonly used for drawings, diagrams, large tables and spreads. A3 refers to a specific size of paper, for example, an A3 sheet of paper measures 297 x 420 millimetres or 11.69 x 16.54 inches. This measurement has been given the more standardised name, A3 by the ISO paper size system. The International Organisation for Standardization, or ISO, is responsible for providing the well known and much used “A” series standardised paper measurements which we all know and rely on all over the world. These “A” series paper sizes range from A0 which is the largest, to A10, the smallest. The ISO system uses very specific height-to-width ratio measurements which means that any size sheet folded in two along its shortest side then becomes equal to the next smallest sheet size. So for example, if you fold an A3 page in half along its shortest side, you are actually creating an A4 measurement. Using the same theory, two A3 pages next to each other in a spread are equal to an A2 sized sheet of paper. Via this method a range of paper sizes are created from A0 (A0 being equal to the surface of one square meter) to A10. The height/width ratio remains constant for all sizes: 1:1.41 or the square root of 2, dimensions always being rounded to the nearest millimeter.

If you’re beginning a project maybe a drawing, diagram or large table, Office 365 have a huge range of A3 paper to choose from. Our A3 paper is also frequently used in laser printers, outputting two A4 pages as a spread.