Chipboard Covers by Size

Many small manual binding punches struggle with chipboard because the material is denser than paper and often thicker than the punch opening allows, especially at 35pt and above. For thicknesses beyond what your machine is rated to handle, ordering the covers pre-punched to your binding style protects your equipment and avoids a jammed or bent punch mechanism. If you have a heavy-duty commercial or electric punch, a thinner chipboard in the 18pt to 24pt range usually punches without issue, but it's worth checking your machine's rated capacity before running anything heavier through it.

Since this chipboard is made from 100% recycled material, some variation in shade — from gray to brown, sometimes with visible speckles — is normal and expected across a pack rather than a defect. For projects where uniform appearance matters, such as a matched set of presentation covers, consider that this natural variation is part of the material rather than something you can select around. If your project will wrap or paint over the chipboard entirely, the underlying color variation won't be visible in the finished piece.

This chipboard line covers a wide range beyond letter size, including half-letter, legal, A6 through A3, and several square and oversized formats like 12" x 18" and 12" x 12", which work well for scrapbooking and larger presentation pieces. If your project needs a size outside the standard offerings, it's worth confirming exact dimensions against your bound document before ordering, since chipboard doesn't trim as easily as paper covers if the size comes up short. Pairing a front cover in a different material is common too — poly and plastic binding covers are available in matching dimensions if you want a poly front with a chipboard back.

If your binding machine is a smaller manual unit, ordering pre-punched to match your exact binding style (coil, comb, wire, or another pattern) is the safer choice, since it avoids running dense chipboard through a punch that isn't rated for it. Unpunched sheets make sense if you have a heavy-duty punch capable of handling the material, or if the covers will be used for a non-binding application like crafting or wrapping where punching isn't needed at all. Check the available punch pattern options against your specific machine before choosing, since not every pattern is offered at every thickness.