Hole punch

A hole punch (known also as a hole puncher) is a common office tool that is used to create holes in sheets of paper, often for the purpose of collecting the sheets in a binder. There are hole punchers that make one, two, three four, five, six, seven or eight holes at one time, the placement of which matches the spacing of the rings in the binder.

There are also hole punchers that make holes of various geometric shapes, or silhouettes of objects or animals. These are used to punch decorative holes along the edges of pieces of paper, and for making confetti, when creating scrapbooks and other paper crafts.

Contrary to the somewhat naïve belief that the holes simply vanish into thin air, most multiple-hole and many single-hole punches accumulate the waste paper circles in a chamber, which must be periodically emptied in order to facilitate the continued operation of the punch. See also Wikipedia entry under: Paper punches