As a role-player I often produce character sheets, which can run to
three or six sides. I want to fasten them together, but I also don't
want to dump metal staples into the paper recycling bin or the
shredder, or to take the time to remove them.
The best answer I've found to this problem is the stapleless
stapler. Given a stack of pages, it cuts a U-shaped tongue, then folds
this back into a cut slot. Here's a helpful diagram in Japanese from
Amazon:
There are disadvantages compared with a normal stapler: you can't
staple more than few sheets (the biggest one I've seen claims to do
ten), and the link is more fragile than a conventional metal staple in
paper. But for something that's not going to be handled roughly, or
indeed that you want to separate later, it works very well.
This is the Ecozone stapler, the first one I bought. It's not bad, but
it struggles over about four sheets. It copes well with very thin and
grotty paper. This seems to be hard to find now, though there's a
generic model which seems to have about the same capabilities.
This is the grown-up of the crowd, a Kokuyo Harinacs SLN-MSH110D which claims
to be able to join up to ten sheets. (I think that's optimistic, but
it's certainly happy with six.) It's not quite as good with thin paper
as the Ecozone but does a great job with normal 80gsm. There are
desktop Harinacs models too; I'm tempted.
These are the cut patterns made by the two staplers I have, the
Harinacs on the left and the Ecozone on the right. The Harinacs holes
are flared near the tip to fit a ring binder.
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