When first creating a portfolio, it is hard to decide for certain when you like a layout.  Even after your portfolio is established, there are many reasons that changes may want to be made.  The most frequent reason is that there is better work to showcase.  If your portfolio is glued together in a permanent fashion, a lot of money will be spent buying new pages and printing new pictures.

There are a few different ways to stick stuff down temporarily.  My favorite is a temporary glue stick made by 3M.  It is carried in most department stores, although it can be difficult to locate if you don't know what you are looking for.  It works just like a glue stick, smells a little like a permanent marker, and leaves a paper surface with about the same amount of stick as a post-it note. This makes it especially perfect for deciding on initial layouts.  It is just as easy to use as any glue stick, and makes it incredebly easy to change things around.

The biggest downside is that over time it loses its sticky a little, so if I haven't used my portfolio in a long time and pull it out again, I often need to restick a number of items.  This flaw, however, also encourages me to update my portfolio because if need to open it up and glue anyway, I may as well add more recent stuff.  Another thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't work as well on the slippery surface of photographs.  I mount all my photos on a contrasting colored paper anyway using permanent glue and  leaving a boarder around the edge of the paper so it stands out from the black background paper.  

I've also known people to use rubber cement for the purpose of temporary stickage, but I find it more difficult to deal with.  Double sided scotch tape can also work, however when peeling it up it will often remove a layer of paper with it from either your work or the portfolio page and over time can cause a yellow tape shaped shadow on thinner paper.

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