Install the ink cartridge.

Fountain pens almost always come with their ink cartridge sealed and uninstalled, so you’ll need to install the cartridge before you can write with the pen. You can find our complete guide to installing ink cartridges here.

Not all fountain pens are compatible with the same cartridges, so be sure to check the Recommended Refills list for your pen when picking out refill cartridges.

Many fountain pens can also use bottled fountain pen ink using either a built-in filling system or a cartridge-shaped device called a converter. Many people prefer bottled inks over cartridges because they come in far more colors and cost less than ink cartridges in the long run.

For more information on the various fountain pen filling systems and demonstrations of how to use them, check out Fountain Pen Filling Systems Explained.

Hold the pen at about a 45-degree angle to the paper.

Hold the pen so that the tines are resting evenly on the page.

Hold the pen so that the nib is above the feed and at about a 45-degree angle to the paper. It won’t write well if you hold it upside down or at too high or low of an angle.

Also, try not to twist the pen clockwise or counterclockwise in your hand. The tips of the two nib tines need to rest evenly on the page as you write. Otherwise the ink slit between them will lose contact with the page and cause the pen to skip or stop writing altogether.

Not all paper is equally suited for use with fountain pens.

This isn’t strictly necessary, but using fountain pen friendly paper and notebooks will make your experience far more enjoyable and less likely to end in frustration.

Fountain pens will work on most normal paper, but you can run into problems with bleed-through, feathering (when the ink spreads out into the paper fibers in a feathery pattern), and sometimes even skipping. This can happen regardless of whether the paper is good or not so good—most paper these days just isn’t made with fountain pens in mind.

Also, fountain pen inks can be very sensitive to dust and skin oils, so paper that’s been sitting around for a while or handled a lot may not perform as well as fresh, untouched paper.

To see our top paper recommendations, check out our guides to the best fountain pen friendly paper and notebooks.

Try out a variety of pen and ink combinations to see what works best for you.

Although writing with a fountain pen isn’t all that different from writing with any other pen, it can still take a bit of practice before it feels natural. We also recommend experimenting with a variety of inks, papers, and writing styles to see what works best for you and your pen.

Owning a fountain pen is a bit like owning a pet. You can learn everything there is to know about any given model, but the pen you get will also have its own unique personality. Some pens work better with certain inks than they do with others. Some pens like being held at a slightly different angle than others do. This may seem like work—and it can be at first—but in exchange you’ll develop a deeper bond with your fountain pen than with any other pen. And unlike a ballpoint or rollerball pen that can perform differently with each new refill, once you’ve dialed in how to get the best out of your fountain pen you can keep getting that same performance for as long as you want.

Like we said earlier, fountain pens work best on fountain pen friendly paper and notebooks. There are some fountain pen inks like Noodler’s Black and Waterman Serenity Blue that work well even on most non-fountain pen friendly papers, but if you don’t want to worry about it then it’s probably best to stick with a tried-and-true gel or ballpoint pen.

Fountain pen ink takes longer to dry than most other inks. There are some ultra-fast-drying inks like Noodler’s Polar Blue that can match the drying speed of a gel pen, but they generally feather quite badly even on fountain pen friendly paper.

For more information on our fastest-drying fountain pen inks, check out our guide to the best fast-drying fountain pen inks.

The vast majority of fountain pen inks aren’t waterproof or archival. Even most fountain pen inks that are touted as water-resistant can’t compare to a gel or ballpoint pen. There are some waterproof fountain pen inks like pigment-based inks and Noodler’s “Bulletproof” inks, but they tend to be slower-drying and more susceptible to smearing than archival markers like the Sakura Pigma Micron and pigmented gel pens like the Pilot Juice, Uni-ball Signo, or Zebra Sarasa Push Clip.

For more information on our most water-resistant fountain pen inks, check out our guide to the best waterproof fountain pen inks.

If you do a lot of writing, you’ll probably need to refill your fountain pen every week or so. Lawyers and grad students who write from dawn to dusk may even need to refill their pens every day or two. Cartridges are small and easy to replace—and pens with built-in filling systems can last longer between fills—but if the need to refill your pen that often is a turn-off, you may want to stick with a ballpoint pen.

You may have heard that fountain pens leak if you take them on an airplane. That’s rarely an issue with pens made nowadays, but to be safe, we recommend keeping your pen either completely full or or completely empty when flying. Also, if you plan to use the pen during flight, we recommend storing it with the nib pointing up and waiting until the plane has reached cruising altitude before opening it.

The reason for all this is that as an airplane ascends, the air pressure inside the plane goes down. The reduced air pressure causes any air trapped inside a pen to expand. If the expanding air doesn’t have a clear pathway to escape through the nib, it will push out any ink in its way.

Except for Noodler’s Polar inks, all fountain pen inks will freeze and burst their pen or bottle if you leave them exposed to icy temperatures for long enough. A ballpoint pen—especially a pressurized one like the Uni Power Tank or Fisher Space Pen—is your best bet in frosty weather.

This is another one you can’t really work around—sooner or later all fountain pens need to be cleaned. But there are some you don’t have to clean as often. Many Platinum fountain pens including the Preppy, Plaisir, Procyon, and 3776 Century feature a special “slip and seal” cap design that can keep the ink inside the pen fresh for a year or more without use.