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Shadowrun » Shadowrun General » General Discussion » SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « previous next » Pages: [1] 2 Go Down
Author squirened Newb
Posts: 14
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Topic: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet (Read 24350 times) SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « on: (14:37:03/07-16-13) »
The first thing I noticed when I went through SR5 is that there was no form fillable sheet (seriously, with PDF releases, you'd think companies publishing character sheets would just make them when they were working on the original PDF's). However, I happen to have Scribus and a few clues about how to use it, so without further ado, I present my form fillable character sheet for SR5. So here's some links: V1 is the original sheet with just some form fillable stuff, V2.2 is an extended character sheet with some automatic calculations and a third page used both for some of the calculations but also for the wonder that is having enough spell blanks on the character sheet to actually pick a Magic A spellcaster and not run out of room. In addition, there is a second vehicle section and another Adept Power/Special Abilties section. Suggestions for V3 are still open; V2.5 will include initiation and submersion, calculated movement speeds, and searchable text on the third page, while V3 will have even more functionality for quick reference, including modified AGI/REA for armor and more fun stuff. Version 1: Vanilla Form Fillable Version 2.5a: Version 2.5a with calculated attributes and essence as well as extra gear spots. Version History and general main page: http://blog.homoeoteleuton.com/?page_id=983 Source page (plus tutorial) for those who want to make their own: http://blog.homoeoteleuton.com/?page_id=1076 « Last Edit: (22:22:28/08-01-13) by squirened »
samoth Chummer
Posts: 147
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
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Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #1 on: (14:46:38/07-16-13) »
The layout is great- any way to set it so instead of manually deleting the 1s (say in the Attribute column) you can just click and type your new number? Logged
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #2 on: (15:27:17/07-16-13) »
There's no way for me to change the way the PDF reader handles the forms, but you can work around it (at least in Foxit). You'll highlight a form's contents if you double-click, allowing for a quicker rewrite; if you push the Tab key, and then type, it'll do the same thing, though to tab to the attributes you'll have to go from the AP of your primary melee weapon. Logged
All4BigGuns Prime Runner
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #3 on: (16:11:03/07-16-13) »
Have you considered doing some "specialist" sheets?
Posts: 7538
Examples: More implant spaces and no spaces for magic stuff for Street Samurai types. More Power spaces and no implant spaces for Adepts. More Spirit and Spell spaces and no implant for Magicians. Removing Magic stuff in favor of even more Vehicle space for Riggers. Stuff like that and perhaps a detailed "vital statistic" page with a spot for allies, enemies, family and biography (for those who need a good amount of space for that). You might also considering using the "printer friendly" version someone posted here on the forums for your base as well. Not sure how good the official logo will be on ink cartridges. Logged (SR5) Homebrew Archetypes Tangled Currents (Persistent): 33 Karma, 60,000 nuyen
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #4 on: (17:03:23/07-16-13) »
I'm contemplating specialist sheets, but to be honest I may just make it one really, really big sheet and make bookmarks (5 pages would probably be the tops). I've already added in an extra vehicle slot. Another thing I'm considering is having "Stuff Pages", essentially 1-page standalone things with copied over vehicle/augmentation/weapon/whatever slots, but it's at Priority D, so to speak, after creating a sheet that works for at least 75% of runners without any issue. Augmentations aren't as high issue as magic, because they do eat from Essence, and while it's possible to get a lot you probably won't have that many on a starter character, meaning they'll probably go on the end of page 3 or early page 4. As an added note, essence loss from cyberware can be calculated. I'll probably include at least 20 slots for cyberware, which should be plenty unless you're Delta'ing a lot of really small things, which could probably go in notes (like cybereye attachments in 3rd Edition, for instance). Again, in 2.2 there's already a third page with more spell and power/spirit spaces (if you follow the example for "Silver" from my site, you'll see that both I and Catalyst use the slots as such), a second vehicle (there will probably be a couple more on a later page as well). In short, my goal is to take everything possible into a single 4-5 page sheet and make it flow well. Rather than go specialist, I'd rather just go really long so that people don't have to dig up a special character sheet for everyone; my idea is that you can have one sheet on a flash drive and copy it to all of your players, rather than need to send them a link. I don't want to modify the built-in character sheet, which is the first-two pages; it comes through pretty bad so I'd have to strip off a lot of the stuff, then add it back in using the proper methods. Remember, I'm working with print material using a digital production pipeline; the two are not necessarily the same, and Catalyst used Adobe products (ID6 for the PDF) while I'm using entirely FOSS stuff. This means that while I get by for the impressive material price of $0, I can't necessarily do everything they did the way they did. You may notice that my fonts aren't actually the same ones as the character sheet had, just very similar ones, for instance. Unless someone wants to hand me what would probably amount to $120 or so for distro rights for their fonts, I'm sticking to what I've got in my library, and, to be honest, Catalysts' are better. That said, I *am* going to release the source with V3, and I may make a tutorial for opening up the character sheet in Inkscape to get what you want to get. For the most part it's pretty simple-the text is an epic pain, since PDF formatting =/= SVG formatting, which is what Inkscape wants. A printer-friendly version is rather low on my priorities list; even though it would be nice, form-fillable is sort of antithetical to it. That said, making one once I reach a certain degree of progress would be pretty simple. As far as the "vital statistic" page, I am going to include at some point just a blank multi-line field that you will be able to put whatever you want in, but it won't allow calculations or the like. « Last Edit: (17:06:29/07-16-13) by squirened »
All4BigGuns Prime Runner
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Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #5 on: (17:29:48/07-16-13) »
The main reason I like more slots for the augmentations is because I prefer a "cleaner" looking character sheet, and more slots allows for writing out the components for eye/ear replacements on separate lines (easier to do than trying to compress into 1/2 an inch space under the notes field and MUCH easier to read). Logged
Posts: 7538 (SR5) Homebrew Archetypes Tangled Currents (Persistent): 33 Karma, 60,000 nuyen
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #6 on: (18:06:36/07-16-13) »
At some point I may go back and do a character sheet that's shorter and custom-made, and I recognize that a lot of people want that, but until I finish up making a Swiss Army Knife styled character sheet I'm not going to go in and do it myself. Again, however, I'll include the Scribus sources and probably do a short little video tutorial on how to make stuff work with Version 3, though Version 4 will probably be the full-featured 4 or 5 page one. Again, however, this 4 or 5 page sheet will include plenty of space for basically everything; it'll duplicate the second page (except Matrix, or maybe even Matrix if I hear people ask), and chunks of the first page, and include an entirely elective "Notes" section for writing anything that needs recording. Again, however, I'm not putting in more cyberware sections until after I have the essence calculation ready, which is a 2.6+ feature right now, because when I do I'll be better off if I have them already set up. Again, I'm not really working on these to be printed out; they are at least so far meant to be used pretty much exclusively as a digital assistant; I hope to do a printer-friendly one near the end of the production run, but solely for experience's sake; I don't want to use any non-Catalyst sources for my stuff to keep it consistent, so my print-friendly involves going in and converting the first two pages to a print-friendly format (I'll probably leave the borders and such red), remove the tabs on the heading font, turn it from white to black, and then in Scribus I'll have to manually add the text over again to make it searchable, because I'll have to take the .pdf's and make them into a .eps, then figure out what to do with the huge formatting hole that taking out the logo will create. EDIT: It looks like it's not going to be possible, with my current workflow, to make the text on the third page searchable in Scribus, which is annoying because I've made PDF's in which it works fine before. If anyone has an epiphany, feel free to share it, but most of the solutions aren't available conveniently for Windows, which excludes me from executing them, and involve going back to PostScript which will likely break everything anyway. « Last Edit: (18:46:10/07-16-13) by squirened »
All4BigGuns Prime Runner
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Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #7 on: (18:12:19/07-16-13) »
Instead of doing a whole lot of extra stuff for the printer friendly version, why don't you just talk to the guy who posted a printer friendly and see if he'd mind if you used it as a base for yours? Logged Posts: 7538
(SR5) Homebrew Archetypes Tangled Currents (Persistent): 33 Karma, 60,000 nuyen
Mara Ace Runner
Posts: 1128
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #8 on: (18:23:04/07-16-13) »
I tried to use the sheet, but it is sluggish to scroll, and, you cannot put the parentheses for augmented/modified attributes Logged
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #9 on: (19:27:18/07-16-13) »
All4BigGuns: As for using the print friendly as a base, I'm more than a little hesitant for a number of reasons; first, I've got point-level precision already wired onto the originals, and I've got a .SVG/.EPS sitting open with torn apart rips of the original vector datapoints from the PDF. but also my goal is to make it feel as much as possible like the original character sheets. Not to sound aggressive or selfish, but I'm doing this for myself and my players first, and we like our shiny graphics. Also, when/if I go print-friendly, I'd rather just make it myself so that I can use layers and have everything in the PDF. Mara: That's a V3 feature coming probably by the end of next week. As is you'll have to track all the changes somewhere and just put in the main values in the front. It's calculation heavy to do modified/modifier+original with the PDF tools, so while it's doable it'll require a sub-section to handle neatly. If you go to my site and look at the differences between V2 and V2.1, they're getting the same treatment that Initiative got. Don't worry, the attributes are considered "Critical" priority, and will be in V2.6. Attribute calculation's coming in 2.4 2.5, which is coming out (fingers-crossed) tonight because I'm skipping 2.4. « Last Edit: (19:30:18/07-16-13) by squirened »
Opti Freelancer Omae
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Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #10 on: (19:32:14/07-16-13) »
You are giving a herculean effort to this, Chief. Praise. Logged
Posts: 315
Mara Ace Runner
Posts: 1128
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #11 on: (19:51:34/07-16-13) »
What about the sluggishness of it, squirend? That just my lap-top noting being top of the line? Or...is it to do with me using Adobe?(if it is adobe, do you have a PC PDF reader you recommend?) Logged
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #12 on: (20:11:21/07-16-13) »
I use and recommend Foxit. Are you talking about page transitions, or calculation sluggishness? Calculations should be relatively fast, but the PDF is ~5x the size of the original, so it may take some time loading. I'm using a 2 year old mid/high-end laptop and it goes fine in Foxit and miserably in Adobe. Logged
Frostbyte Newb
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #13 on: (23:27:43/07-16-13) »
Heh, I created some form-fillable PDFs as well; here's the thread: http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=11574.0
Posts: 50 Good news, everyone!
One thing I'd recommend is getting rid of the background image entirely, since it makes the sheets cleaner and much more printer-friendly. I hate the baked-in background images with a fierce passion, so I actually created my sheets from scratch in Photoshop while staying as true as possible to the original 5th edition sheets. Anyway, feel free to use either the PDFs or the PNGs if you wanna make some further modifications. Background images are the devil! Logged
squirened Newb
Posts: 14
Re: SR5- Form Fillable Character Sheet « Reply #14 on: (23:36:05/07-16-13) »
Thanks for the offer. Again, I actually have the original character sheets in such a way that I can just delete the background image and/or the logos (though I will lose the original fonts because of not having them on my computer and having to go to EPS to get it into Scribus as opposed to embedding the original PDF w/fonts), so it's not a question of not being able to do it, but rather not being ready to yet; it'll come when I've got the sheets themselves a little more feature complete-I'm putting all my time working on this right now into making the stuff for version milestones, and I'll probably make print-friendly capability w/V3 in 3.1 or so. Check the attachment to see what I'm talking about. Logged
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