Paper clips have existed for nearly 150 years, and it's hard to imagine office life without them. Often, paper clips provide the only practical solution to keeping a multiple-page document together without putting holes in it. When submitting documents or applications, some instructions explicitly state you can't staple pages together, so a paper clip becomes your best answer.

Not only do paper clips bind pages together, they make an excellent paper fastener when attaching documents to one or both sides of a manila folder for easy access and review, and they also create a professional appearance to the folder's recipient. When buying paper clips, keep the following thoughts in mind:

1. Buy fancy, but understated, paper clips to enhance a resume package or a client proposal.

2. As a general rule, and regardless of your personality, avoid attaching novelty paper clips to business proposals when you're trying to win another company's business. You want to project a professional image, and plastic coated fancy paper clips in bright colors will detract from your presentation.

3. Look for giant paper clips when you want to neatly and securely hold together more pages than regular paper clips can reliably handle.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Buy personalized paper clips to use in the office or give away

Personalized paper clips offer another way to unobtrusively push your company's name in front of a lot of people for a relatively small cost.

I recommend: Think about advertising your company with the personalized plastic paper clips from Absorbent, Ink. If your company has booths at trade shows, consider giving away the clip caddies imprinted with your logo and filled with vinyl office paper clips from Promo-Force. Put your name and logo on a tin holding six jumbo metal paper clips from Branders.com that you can carry in your pocket, purse or car. Attach your logo to the twin clips at National Pen and use as giveaways at trade shows or put them in a basket for clients and customers to take.

Purchase unique paper clips to make a statement about yourself

Unique paper clips may offer hints of your personality to those who see them. You can find novelty paper clips, fancy paper clips or other unusual paper clips that help you take care of business but also make a personal statement about you, while being more interesting than using traditional paper clips.

I recommend: As if you didn't already have enough work, now you can throw in the kitchen sink with Drip Clips from Office Playground. For fancy paper clips, buy the circle clips from Oriental Trading. Consider the customized paper clips with motivational messages at Classic Clips. For unique paper clips, you can also purchase an eight-pack of re-usable metal Advantus Slide Clips at Shoplet.

Order traditional paper clips if you just want to get the job done

You may require more conservative paper clips if you work in a professional environment. You can still bulk order regular paper clips, so you never run short.

I recommend: Go to iBuyOfficeSupply.com for steel wire jumbo paper clips. You can get a case of regular silver paper clips at Office Depot or a tub of vinyl-coated desk paper clips at Quill. You'll find gold colored large paper clips at Staples.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Consider using decorative paper clips or even regular paper clips as very effective page markers. You can even fasten them down the side of a page to mark specific paragraphs or sentences.