Filofax Punches

There are quite a few different of paper punches on the market for punching pages to fit in to your Filofax, I have done a few posts about these before. In this post we will look in closer detail at 3 or 4 of the ones I own.

Just before Christmas I received a KW Trio punch from Holland, this punch is adjustable with settings for Filofax A5, Personal, Pocket/Mini, it also has an additional setting which is suitable for Mulberry Agenda organisers.

For the technically minded the KW Trio 9170 punch has two sets of 3 punches spaced at 19mm spacing with the central spacing being adjustable to 70, 51, 38 and 19mm spacings or anything in between with careful measurements!

Not clearly visible in the photos but the punch has markings for the different page sizes on the front edge of the lever to help you align them centrally in the punch, there is also a pull out paper guide for most of the common paper sizes.

Set to A5 spacing, the two sets of punch blocks slide to their outer most settings.

With the plastic base removed you can see the punch blocks slid to their A5 settings, the other holes above the punches are the detents for Personal, Mulberry and Pocket/Mini spacings..

The punch blocks are now shown at their narrowest setting, which is suitable for Filofax Pocket and Mini hole spacings. Mini is the same hole spacing as Pocket (19mm) but only 5 rings instead of 6.

Again with the base removed you can see the punch blocks set to Pocket settings.

This punch has 5 mm punch dies which is the standard size for most hole punches on the market.

This punch is available from a couple of on-line sources,(Othwl.nl and Hummelman) the shipping though does increase the cost but the overall cost is still very reasonable for a punch that will most probably suit all of your Filofax organiser requirements. 

The KW Trio is also branded as the Rakuten PU - 462 and due to the cost of shipping to say the USA, it is cheaper to buy this version rather than the KW Trio version.


The Rapseco Diary hole punch which has featured before can be adjusted to punch pages for Personal, Pocket/Mini and Mulberry Agenda. It's slightly smaller in overall size to the KW Trio, but it is of similar design with moveable punch blocks. Again the punch dies are 5mm in diameter. Like the KW Trio it has an easy to remove plastic base for emptying out the paper 'chads'


The two three punch blocks have like the KW Trio equal 19 mm spacing with central spacing adjustable to 51, 38 and 19 mm spacing.

Again the two sets of punch blocks slide in channels set in to the base of the punch. In the photo below they are at their outer most setting set to punch Personal hole spacing. 

And with the two punch blocks pushed together they are set to Pocket/Mini spacing. 

With the plastic base remove you can see the workings of the punches and again the detents for other spacings (Personal, Mulberry, Pocket/Mini)

If you have no requirement to punch pages for an A5 Filofax then this punch is ideal.

The Rapseco punch is available via Amazon as well as other sources.



I also have a Filofax A5 punch and a Filofax Pocket Punch, these are almost identical in construction and operation. They are of fixed spacing unlike the two above.

First the Filofax A5 punch. The punch is solidly made out of aluminium with plastic end caps and steel 5mm punch dies.

Viewed from behind, you can see the punch dies and two springs that acts on the punch lever.

As you can see the Filofax Pocket is nearly identical in construction.

As you can see front and back they look almost the same as the A5 version. The main difference is that the Pocket size is fitted with 3 mm punch dies, the rings on Pocket and Minis are slightly thinner.

To empty the Filofax punches of paper chads you have to first remove the plastic end cap off the end indicated by the arrow on the base. 

Then normally using a pair of small pliers slide out the base plate, being careful to not spill the contents everywhere!

And here you can see it disassembled, this is the pocket Filofax punch. 

One of the common complaints about the Filofax own brand punches is how hard they are to use.

The picture below will give you a bit of a clue as to why this is so.... as you can see the KW trio on the left has a far bigger lever to operate and push down on compared to the two Filofax punches on the right, which as you can see are the same size, just different overall lengths for their respective paper sizes.

It's also worth pointing out that any of these four punches will punch holes for the defunct M2 organisers, as they have only 3 rings of 19mm ring spacing.

This post The Great Organiser Hole Spacing Conspiracy will help you with the multitude of hole-spacings there are for different makes of ring bound organisers.



I also came across this adjustable punch on Amazon UK. I have not tested it so I can't vouch for its quality etc. The adjustment is by moving the individual punch dies so it will be a bit more involved to adjust the punch when changing paper sizes.