Custom Character Sheets?

[Redux]

Hello all,

I want to make my own custom character sheet for 4th Edition, but I lack the know-how. I could make it in photoshop or something similar but I realized it would be painstakingly long. To all the people who've had experience making character sheets, what program(s) do you recommend I use? I use a PC with Windows XP on it, so the mac stuff is out of my reach.

 

[Henrix]

Adobe Illustrator is probably best, but any desk-top publishing program should be useful.
Inkscape and Scribus are both open source DTPs, and as such free. I've not really used any of them, so I don't know which is better suited.

 

[renatoram]

Inkscape is much easier to work with, than scribus in my experience.

But it is suitable mostly for single pages: Scribus on the other hand is a layout/dtp program used to typeset books.

 

[shinobi_guyver]

I use couple programs to create my custom sheets.

I use GIMP to import .pdf files and modify them as images, making sure to save them as .ps files. I then convert the .ps files to .pdf using either Ghostscript or http://www.ps2pdf.com/ which is a website that converts the .ps file to .pdf for you. If what I'm trying to work on has several pages, I use PDFTK Builder to combine everything into one file.

It probably seems like a lot of work, but it works for me. I guess it helps that I'm an extremely patient person. XD

 

[Redux]

Thanks for the help! Personally, when it comes to digital media I tend to be a perfectionist, but I'm also impatient. Worst combination ever. I would think that moving .pdf images would lower the resolution if you were doing anything other than moving them around. I'll try Inkscape or Scribus soon. Would Adobe InDesign be useful at all? I have access to the Adobe CS3 Master collection where I work.

Any other tips would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Henrix]

You could certainly use Indesign, but Illustrator is more suited to the task - isn't it included in the collection?

 

[Mezzer]

Personally, I use Corel for my char sheet, CorelDRAW specifically, since I tend to stick to vector design, and little or no images. Since this is far from the norm however, Illustrator is probably the best place to get started for you.

 

[renatoram]

InDesign is a layout program (the same "genre" as Scribus), and it is what's used to layout most of the gaming books you find around (don't know about DnD, but probably): very costly, but top notch.

@Mezzer: actually, Illustrator is vector, just like Inkscape and CorelDRAW

I would find it very strange if any charsheet was done NOT in vector!

 

[Mezzer]

Heh, that's not what I meant, I was just saying that few people use Corel nowadays. Most tend to stick to the Adobe suite, since it has everything you could need, without compatibility issues. Corel can be a bit temperamental in that regard.