Journal For Custom Keycaps Ultimate

Getting Started With Your Keycap Journal

I picked up my first set of keycaps on eBay back when PBT doubleshot was still a novelty and nobody really cared about legends. I bought some random XDA profile caps from a seller who didn't even know what PBT stood for. Fast forward eight years and I have roughly two hundred caps taking up shelf space across my apartment, which means I needed a system to track what I own, where it came from, and what condition it's actually in. Most people don't. The Journal For Custom Keycaps Ultimate is essentially a spreadsheet-based tracking system that most people configure through Google Sheets or Excel. It tracks every set you own with fields for profile, material, legend type, source, price paid, and condition. Some versions include photos and a timeline of acquisitions. The file circulates across keyboard communities and gets modified frequently because people keep adding features. You can find it on GitHub, Reddit's r/MechanicalKeyboards, and various Discord servers dedicated to the hobby. Search for the repository directly and there are usually pinned download links. Clone or download a copy and duplicate it under your own name so you don't accidentally overwrite someone else's edits. I lost one entire sheet that way and had to rebuild it from memory, which took about three hours across multiple weekends.

Setting Up Your Spreadsheet

Open the template and you will see columns for key information. Profile goes in one, material in another, legend type (dye-sublimated, pad-printed, laser-etched, etc.) in a separate column. Add price paid and purchase date so you can track how much you've spent over time. Condition ratings are usually numeric on a one to five scale. The tricky part most people skip is the notes field. Don't use it as a free-for-all. Put specific details that matter later. When I rebuilt mine after data loss, I realized I had marked several sets as "good condition" without noting that the spacebar had minor shine spots. Two years later I wanted to sell those and realized I had no idea what the actual state was. Now I write everything down immediately, even if it seems trivial at the time.

Keeping It Useful Long Term

The journal only works if you actually update it. Set a rule: no transaction is complete until the entry exists. I used to buy caps at shows and fill things out weeks later when I remembered. By then I had lost receipts and the condition at the time of purchase was impossible to verify. That changed when I started doing it on my phone immediately after paying. One edge case worth mentioning: vintage or rare keycap sets. I bought a set of early Cherry OEM legend keycaps from a German seller for ninety euros. The listing said dye-sublimated legends but they turned out to be pad-printed, and the condition description was inaccurate. Having the photo reference and exact listing description saved me when I needed to return them. If you're going to use this system for serious collecting, always take your own photos rather than relying on the seller's images. Lighting matters. Put the caps next to a ruler and a plain white background and you'll thank yourself later.

Common Problems and What They Cost You

People abandon these journals within three months because they become a chore to maintain. The biggest reason is column overload. Some templates force you to fill out twelve different fields for every single keycap, including redundant information you already provided elsewhere. Keep it lean. Core fields are enough: profile, material, legend type, source, price, date, condition, and a notes section for anything unusual. Everything else is noise. Another issue is format drift. Different versions of the same journal use different column names and layouts. If you share your file with someone else, make sure you both understand what each column means before sending it around. I once imported a friend's updated version without checking and lost my entire color-coding system because he renamed six columns without warning. Took me another two hours to map everything back correctly. If spreadsheet tracking isn't your thing, there are alternatives. Some people use Notion databases instead, which handle images better and allow filtering by profile or material. Others use simple apps designed specifically for keycap collection management. I tried a few and went back to the spreadsheet because it's portable, offline-capable, and doesn't require an account or subscription to function.

When the System Doesn't Help

This tool has a hard limit. It tracks what you own and what you paid, but it won't tell you whether a price is fair, whether a seller is trustworthy, or whether those keycaps are actually worth the money. For that you need community knowledge and independent verification. The journal is documentation, not advice. There are also cases where the system fails entirely. If you trade keycaps without setting a price, there is nothing meaningful to record beyond what you received and what you gave away. Similarly, heavily modified or handmade caps that don't fit standard categories often don't fit neatly into any column and end up getting poorly tracked or ignored altogether. The bottom line is that maintaining a keycap journal takes about fifteen minutes upfront if you do it right, maybe twenty to thirty minutes if you mess up the layout the first time. After that it's just an update whenever something changes. Do it consistently and it pays for itself within a year in terms of saved time, better buying decisions, and accurate records for sales or insurance purposes.