Sheet design

[stewstew5]

Let's say I wanted to create a set of character sheets for an entirely new system. Are there any websites that would allow me to quickly create coherent sheets I could save as a pdf?

[richaell]

This would be awesome! My buddies and I just use word or excel really. We make pretty much all our systems from scratch so that helps I guess.

[stewstew5]

This would be awesome! My buddies and I just use word or excel really. We make pretty much all our systems from scratch so that helps I guess.

I wish. They just give me trouble formatting

[MoleMage]

I use Google Drawings for mockups when I am working on systems. Adjust the page size in the file menu and use the rectangle or rounded rectangle draw feature to create boxes. It doesn't look fully polished but it works as a prototype for me.

[Kaskus]

Word is really good for this sort of thing actually. Put your different sections/parts inside text boxes. Then you can move those around independently to wherever you want them and format them independently. If you are using a lot of graphics for backgrounds, dividers, etc. then you need to make sure they are layered in the right order but that's the trickiest part.

[nineGardens]

So....
If aiming mainly for the character sheet itself, I've often used Powerpoint (Or its open office equivelents).
I find presentation software is often more accomadating that document software for throwing shapes around, and the "landscape as default" makes a lot of sense for character sheets (Players tend to have sufficient horizontal space in front of them to fit a landscape document, hence using a potrait orientated document just uses up extra space in the center of the table)


Alternatively, if I'm at the final stages, I use "LateX" for a more professional look...
but this is unnecessarily complex if at an earlier stage of design.

[Son of A Lich!]

If you have the time to learn the program, Inkscape.

Open source, totally free, really powerful and fun. You can scale up or down infinitely because it's a vector, not an image.

Check out Logos by Nick on Youtube and he'll teach you all the short cuts. then it's just a matter of taking the tools and applying them how you want to.

[jqavins]

Word is really good for this sort of thing actually. Put your different sections/parts inside text boxes. Then you can move those around independently to wherever you want them and format them independently.

Word's tables are also really useful, sometimes for more than stuff you would normally use a table for. Using table cells in a row can be easier than using a gazillion tab stops. The column boundaries can be changed row by row, and you can print them without the grid lines.

Using Excel makes it easy to automate calculations on the sheet, but much of that is possible in Word also, just more of a PITA to implement.

(Players tend to have sufficient horizontal space in front of them to fit a landscape document, hence using a potrait orientated document just uses up extra space in the center of the table)

OK, that is a brilliant "Why didn't I think of that?" idea. From now on all my character sheets will be landscape.

EDIT: Hero Forge. It has the distinct disadvantage of not being free, but has considerable capability. It has a large learning curve, but once you climb that, I hear, it is very powerful for creating new systems and sheet designs for them. And I would guess that you can lay out a sheet and print it blank even without defining the whole system, though I don't know that for a fact.