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Designing a character sheet in Open Office

Started by Narf the Mouse, March 04, 2010, 12:07:32 AM

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Narf the Mouse

March 04, 2010, 12:07:32 AM
What do I need to know?
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

Kyle Aaron

#1
March 04, 2010, 12:30:12 AM
I usually do it in spreadsheet form. You want about 14 point font so that players actually have room to write things, that's a common flaw of character sheets.

If you want to have fancy stuff like different boxes scattered across the sheet, make them in the spreadsheet, then copy and paste them into a text document. You can then right-click and fiddle with borders, backgrounds and so on.

What system for?
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

Narf the Mouse

#2
March 04, 2010, 01:08:24 AM
For my Easy20 system.
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

Narf the Mouse

#3
March 04, 2010, 12:46:09 PM
Ok, I've got the start of a character spreadsheet, thanks. How do I format it to take up a single standard 8.5" by 11" page in the display? Or rather, how do I format it to use pages? (Ie, front and back pages)
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

StormBringer

#4
March 04, 2010, 02:04:00 PM
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;364452If you want to have fancy stuff like different boxes scattered across the sheet, make them in the spreadsheet, then copy and paste them into a text document. You can then right-click and fiddle with borders, backgrounds and so on.
This actually works somewhat poorly.  For a reason I am unable to fathom, the spreadsheet is not converted into a table and copied in, it is translated into an image, which becomes very ugly to manipulate.

Now, it could very well be that I have not found the setting to transfer a spreadsheet into a document as a table, but with the defaults, the results are not really pretty.

(Naturally, this is in Linux, I have fewer and fewer occasions to use Windows these days, so I can't be sure about how that works)
If you read the above post, you owe me $20 for tutoring fees

\'Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I have no concern for it, but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.\'
- Thomas Paine
\'Everything doesn\'t need

Narf the Mouse

#5
March 04, 2010, 03:13:20 PM
Yeah, it's copy-pasting as a bitmap, even if I go "Paste Special" and select "calc8".
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

StormBringer

#6
March 04, 2010, 04:09:16 PM
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;364613Yeah, it's copy-pasting as a bitmap, even if I go "Paste Special" and select "calc8".
It does have some fairly sophisticated layout features, though.  If you are in serious need of a table, the only option I know of is to insert a table and fill out the fields by hand.

On the other hand, you will also find under the insert menu an item called 'Frame', which is essentially the central core of the layout features.  It's like a separate document within the document that you can place anywhere, and have full control over the appearance.  Set the anchor to 'page' for maximum flexibility.  You can have the text flow around the frame a number of ways, or not at all, and play around with the format.  Once you have it the way you want it, export to a pdf and you should have what you need.
If you read the above post, you owe me $20 for tutoring fees

\'Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I have no concern for it, but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul.\'
- Thomas Paine
\'Everything doesn\'t need

Silverlion

#7
March 04, 2010, 05:20:12 PM
I've done a few in Open Office early on. Lately I've been using photoshop for better images.

In general I used tables built into Open Office and graphics I copy and pasted and it turned out decent, but not brilliant, PC sheets.
High Valor REVISED: A fantasy Dark Age RPG. Available NOW!
Hearts & Souls 2E Coming in 2019

Narf the Mouse

#8
March 07, 2010, 10:25:08 PM
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;364452I usually do it in spreadsheet form. You want about 14 point font so that players actually have room to write things, that's a common flaw of character sheets.

If you want to have fancy stuff like different boxes scattered across the sheet, make them in the spreadsheet, then copy and paste them into a text document. You can then right-click and fiddle with borders, backgrounds and so on.

What system for?
Hey, Kyle - Still don't know how to copy and past them into an Open Office text document, without it turning into an image or something unusable.

Help?
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

Kyle Aaron

#9
March 08, 2010, 12:01:19 AM Last Edit: March 08, 2010, 12:05:14 AM by Kyle Aaron
Paste special, as calc8.
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;364613Yeah, it's copy-pasting as a bitmap, even if I go "Paste Special" and select "calc8".
Click within the table, you can then edit the contents.

If you want a character sheet you can fill in on the computer, then you're better off leaving it as a spreadsheet. What I described assumes a print copy is the ultimate goal.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

Narf the Mouse

#10
March 08, 2010, 02:00:06 AM
Ah, thanks. I was hoping for editable spreadsheet capability after pasting; that explains it.
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

Kyle Aaron

#11
March 08, 2010, 03:19:01 AM
The contents, font and other formatting options are all editable after pasting it. Everything's editable.

It's just that if you have half a dozen different boxes sitting in your text document, it becomes a pain in the bum having to click multiple times on each one. So if you want a sheet you can edit on the computer, easiest to keep it all on the spreadsheet. If you want something to print off and write on, spreadsheet, copy, paste, and fiddle.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

Narf the Mouse

#12
March 08, 2010, 03:25:31 AM
Words a bit mixed up. I meant, the formulas don't seem to be copied. I'm making an electronic character sheet that can also be printed and written on, for those who like doing the math themselves. Not that there's much math...
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.

Kyle Aaron

#13
March 08, 2010, 04:07:29 AM
The formulae are copied, mate. It's just a spreadsheet within a text document.
The Viking Hat GM
Conflict, the adventure game of modern warfare
Wastrel Wednesdays, livestream with Dungeondelver

Narf the Mouse

#14
March 08, 2010, 02:58:11 PM
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;365432The formulae are copied, mate. It's just a spreadsheet within a text document.
...Huh, that's weird. I didn't see a formula the first time...But then, I'm rather stressed the last few days.
The main problem with government is the difficulty of pressing charges against its directors.

Given a choice of two out of three M&Ms, the human brain subconsciously tries to justify the two M&Ms chosen as being superior to the M&M not chosen.
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