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Between 1577 and 1628, to judge by the dates of surviving examples, Frank Adams and Robert Triplet, two London bookbinders and \"makers of writing tablets,\" put out a large number of notebooks designated as \"Writing Tables with a Kalender for XXIIII years.\" In 16vo format used either in the usual way or as an oblong object, printed notebooks containing some of the standard features of almanacs (such as a calendar, a list of fair dates, distances between cities, table of weights and measures, multiplication table for Roman numerals, and a plate depicting coins in circulation) also included blank pages, some of which were covered with a coating of plaster, glue, and varnish that could be written on and then erased and rewritten. In the 1604 edition published by Robert Triplet, we find in the calendar for December 13 instructions on how to use these \"writing tables\":

To make cleane your Tables, when they are written on. Take a little peece of a Spunge, or a Linnen cloath, being cleane without any soyle: wet it in water, and wring it hard, & wipe that you have written very lightly, and it will out, and withing one quarter of an howre you may wryte in the same place againe; put not your leaves together, whilest they be very we with wyping.