Trifletraxor Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 What kind of software do you use to make your custom character sheets? So far I've been using Word myself, but they don't really turn out that good. Any recommendations? SGL. Quote Ef plest master, this mighty fine grub! 116/420. High Priest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soltakss Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 Excel. If you want a PDF, do it in Excel and print using a PDF Printer the combine the files back to a single file. I use a grid of 1-character cells and merge them together to make larger cells. This makes it a lot easier to manipulate and lay out. However, I like blocky easy to read character sheets, which is easy to do in Excel. Quote Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. www.soltakss.com/index.html Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threedeesix Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 I agree with soltakss on this one. I use Excel for all my character sheets. After you get use to it you can make some pretty nice looking sheets as well. It's what I used for Classic Fantasy and Rubble and Ruin (Which I did for Rich). I also made one for our BRP Fallout campaign and BRP Chill also. Excel is pretty easy to manipulate and you can even have it do loads of calculations for you as well. Rod Quote Join my Mythras/RuneQuest 6: Classic Fantasy Yahoo Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info "D100 - Exactly 5 times better than D20" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaot Posted March 15, 2011 Share Posted March 15, 2011 (edited) So, someplace on this board this question came up. I know this because my response was 'real players use pencil and paper, hur, hur.' I now publicly eat my words on this. I was recently working on one using Photoshop and GIMP. Incredible control but time consuming managing all those layers. By happenstance, I was fiddling around with Pages. It was a rare slow time at work and I took advantage of it. I was able to put this together in about twenty minutes. Next time I have the chance I'm going to try my hand at a character sheet. Pencil and paper are still my friends, put desktop publishing is fun. Edit: You'll note I meant to write yoke in that document, slaving under the yolk would have likely involved the Myyrrhn... Edited March 15, 2011 by Chaot Quote 70/420 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDLeary Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 InDesign currently, but used PageMaker, MS Publisher, and PageStream in the past as well. SDLeary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDLeary Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Woooo! Vera nicea. I think I need to look at Pages again. SDLeary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SDLeary Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) oops... sorry people Edited March 17, 2011 by SDLeary double post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pansophy Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) If you are a Mac user I can recommend OmniGraffle Pro. That's how I do all my DTP stuff. It's fast, easy and enough options to satisfy anybody. After creating the layout I use Acrobat to make the PDF editable and embed JavaScript to do the calculations needed. Pages on a Mac is nice, but still not as convenient as Omnigraffle in my opinion. Word, Excel and such never worked for me as the result always looks a bit of the same. On a Windows PC I probably would use Corel Draw, if that is still around and ticking. Edited March 16, 2011 by pansophy Quote My Uploads - BRP and new: Revolution D100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trifletraxor Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 I use a grid of 1-character cells and merge them together to make larger cells. This makes it a lot easier to manipulate and lay out. I've only a basic knowledge of Excel. How do you make them 1-character cell grids? It's what I used for Classic Fantasy and Rubble and Ruin (Which I did for Rich). Excel is pretty easy to manipulate and you can even have it do loads of calculations for you as well. They look pretty decent! I can see the advantage of having the calculations there too. By happenstance, I was fiddling around with Pages. It was a rare slow time at work and I took advantage of it. I was able to put this together in about twenty minutes. That VERY nice. Unfortunately a Mac-only program it looks like. InDesign currently, but used PageMaker, MS Publisher, and PageStream in the past as well. Pretty expensive as all of Adobes software. How's the learning curve? On a Windows PC I probably would use Corel Draw, if that is still around and ticking. Easy to learn and use according to their webpage, is that true? Also expensive though. Tried making another sheet in Word 2010 which turned out somewhat better than my older sheets: charsheet.docx Quote Ef plest master, this mighty fine grub! 116/420. High Priest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pansophy Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Back in time when I used Corel Draw it was really simple. Draw some boxes, shapes, add them together, put some text above it - splendid. I have no idea what it's like nowadays, as my experience is about 12 years old. Quote My Uploads - BRP and new: Revolution D100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soltakss Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I've only a basic knowledge of Excel. How do you make them 1-character cell grids? In Excel 2000 (probably similar in other versions) ... Select the columns that you want to change, right-click on the column header and choose Column Width - then type in 1 and press OK. It works really well, in my opinion. Quote Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. www.soltakss.com/index.html Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soltakss Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Tried making another sheet in Word 2010 which turned out somewhat better than my older sheets: It opened up in Open office but showed 5 pages with headers, 3 of which were blank and two had skills and stats in. Was that what the file contained? Quote Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. www.soltakss.com/index.html Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaot Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 That VERY nice. Unfortunately a Mac-only program it looks like. It is. Pages is very similar to Publisher though. Though it takes a bit of mucking about at first to figure things out I didn't find the learning curve to be very steep for either program. Gives you a quite a bit more control than Word does as well. Quote 70/420 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trifletraxor Posted March 27, 2011 Author Share Posted March 27, 2011 It opened up in Open office but showed 5 pages with headers, 3 of which were blank and two had skills and stats in. Was that what the file contained? It contains a docx character sheet. Sounds like OpenOffice has a hard time with it though. Quote Ef plest master, this mighty fine grub! 116/420. High Priest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaot Posted March 27, 2011 Share Posted March 27, 2011 By the way Trif, I meant to say that I dig your character sheet. Great job on it. I will confirm that OpenOffice has some problems with it. I opened it on my phone though and it looked good there. Quote 70/420 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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