Paper FAQ
Use the table of contents on the right (or at the top on mobile devices) to quickly find the answers you're looking for!
About
What is Paper?
Paper, also known as paper.nu (https://www.paper.nu) is a student-built course scheduling tool for Northwestern University. It supports building 4-year plans and creating schedules for each quarter. You can view course information all in one place, share and export plans and schedules, save several of them to your account, and more.
How do I use Paper?
Paper is purely a web app and only requires an internet browser. The user interface adapts depending on your screen size, so you'll always have the best experience possible no matter which device you use. Of course, using it on a larger screen will allow you to see more, so you may enjoy that more.
There's no separate mobile app or anything, but you can add Paper to your home screen on your mobile device for easy access separate from your internet browser.
Course Data
When will the latest courses be out?
Course data is automatically refreshed every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at around 11:30 AM. If courses for a new quarter are available, they will be available at this time. Otherwise, the current quarter course data will be refreshed for any changes made to the courses by the instructors in CAESAR.
Which quarters will have course data available?
Course data will be available for quarters within the past 8 years. This means that there will be a maximum of 32 quarters (fall, winter, spring, and summer for 8 years) with course data available at a given time. You can switch between quarters using the "Change term" button below the search bar or by loading a schedule from a different quarter in your account.
Some course data is outdated or missing! What do I do?
If you believe that your course data is outdated and should be updated (based on the time at which the course data is refreshed), you can try clearing your course data cache on Paper by going to Settings and pressing the Clear button beside Clear local course data cache. This will force your computer to refresh the course data from the Paper data server. If that doesn't still work, let me know!
Plans and Schedules
How many plans and schedules can I have?
Without an account, only your most recently edited plan and schedule are saved. Clearing website data, switching to a different term, or loading a link to someone else's plan or schedule are just some of the ways you can lose data.
With an account, you can save up to 5 plans and 20 schedules. Schedules can be from any quarter with course data available in Paper, which consists of data from the past 8 years (32 quarters).
How do I access my old schedules?
You can access schedules up to 8 years old if they're saved to your account. Learn how to manage schedules across quarters.
My plan or schedule is gone. What happened?
If you aren't using an account with Paper, your plans and schedules are stored in your browser's storage. If you clear website data for Paper, locally-saved plans and schedules will be gone. Creating an account is the way to go! If you do have an account and your plan or schedule is gone, go to the Plans or Schedules tab (depending on which view you're in) and select the relevant item from the list to load it.
How do I share or export my plan or schedule?
While your plan or schedule is open, press the Export button in the toolbar and select your desired method.
- Share link: This will share a link to a copy of your plan or schedule. Anyone with the link can view or edit on their device, but it won't update your plan or schedule.
- Export as image (schedule only): This will automatically generate and download a full-size image (1920x1080) of your schedule, no matter what device you're on. No need to take awkward screenshots!
- Export to calendar (schedule only): This will download an .ics file that you can then use to import your schedule into your calendar app of choice.
Miscellaneous
Who made Paper and when was it made?
Paper was made by meeeee, Dilan!! I'm a undergraduate student at Northwestern University in the class of 2024. You're in my help center right now but you can check out more about me at dilanxd.com. You can also follow me on Instagram! Paper started as Plan Northwestern and was initially released in December 2021, which was at the end of my sophomore fall quarter. It then merged with an older course scheduling tool to become Paper in October 2022.
What will happen to Paper when you graduate?
I've spent a lot of time building a strong automated foundation for Paper. There are a ton of systems that run periodically that the end user (you when using it) don't even see. These systems are responsible for updating the course data as often as three times a week and will do so with new terms right as they come out. I'm building it in a way where it can continue to live on even after I graduate and I may continue to release big updates as I'm able to. I will however elect a current student to be on the team and help serve as the point of contact with any partnered university departments that require a current student to be involved. If you want that to be you, let me know.
Why is it called Paper?
It's an app that replaced two different tools, Plan Northwestern and salad.nu. Although salad.nu was technically removed and its functionality was built into Plan Northwestern, I wanted something shorter and more simple. Paper is easy to remember, gives off school vibes, and had a .nu domain available.