Free Chinese Character Practice Sheet Maker (田字格 / 米字格 字帖)

Worked example

Press "Try a sample" and the box fills with 春夏秋冬山水日月, with "8 characters" under it. Leave the defaults: "Grid" 田字格, "Copies to trace" 4, "Rows per character" 1 and a square size of 18 mm. On the English page the paper starts as "US Letter", and the label reads "Square size: 18 mm (10 × 13 per page)". Each character gets one row: a black model in the first square, four grey tracing copies, then five empty squares. Eight rows fit on one page, the rest of the page is filled with blank squares, and the button reads "Download PDF (1 page)". Type 14 characters instead and it becomes 2 pages, because 13 rows fit on a page.

Which settings to use, and the limits

• Choose between one row per character and a passage. "One row per character" gives each character a row with a black model, tracing copies and empty squares, and "Each character once" (on by default) drops repeats. "Copy a passage" is for a poem or lesson: each line of your text starts a new row, every character is printed as a tracing copy, and "Empty rows after each line" (0 to 5, starting at 1) leaves space to copy it out. A line longer than one row wraps, the empty rows follow each printed row, and a row never begins with punctuation such as 。 or ，.
• Set the square size and paper first, because they decide how much fits. The size slider runs from 10 to 30 mm in 1 mm steps, and its label shows how many squares fit across and down. With the title line on, 18 mm gives 10 × 13 on "US Letter", 10 × 14 on "A4" and 8 × 11 on "B5"; 30 mm gives 6 across on A4 or Letter. The paper menu offers "A4", "US Letter" and "B5". Pages start as Letter for places such as the US, Canada and Mexico, and A4 elsewhere. Print the PDF at 100% (actual size), because the squares are drawn at their real size on the paper you chose.
• Tune the tracing copies to the learner. Under "Tracing copies" pick "Grey", "Red (描红)" or "Hollow" (outlined characters). "Copies to trace" sets how many tracing copies follow the black model, from 0 up to one less than the squares in a row (9 at 18 mm), and starts at 4. "Rows per character" accepts 1 to 12 and starts at 1; rows after the first are empty, for free writing. Beginners can use more copies and fewer empty rows, and later sheets can do the reverse.
• Match the grid, colour and font to the script you teach. The "Grid" options are 田字格 (a cross), 米字格 (the cross plus both diagonals), 九宫格 (a 3 × 3 split) and "Plain" (an empty square). "Font" offers "Regular script (楷书)", "Textbook (Klee One)" and "Running script (行书)"; the Japanese page starts on "Textbook (Klee One)" and the others on 楷书. "Grid colour" has Red, Green, Grey and Black swatches, and red is the default.
• Switch on pinyin for Chinese, and know how it is chosen. "Pinyin above each row (Chinese)" adds a four-line band above every row with the reading written in tone marks. Readings are worked out from your whole text, so a character with several readings is read in context (the code's own example is 银行 háng against 行走 xíng). With "Each character once" on, a repeated character keeps its first reading. The band takes space, so fewer rows fit: at 18 mm on Letter the count goes from 13 to 8. Kana and hangul get no pinyin, and the pinyin library loads only when you tick the box.
• Watch the page count; the PDF stops at 60 pages. The line above the preview shows the page count, and the button repeats it, for example "Download PDF (2 pages)". If you ask for more than 60 pages, only the first 60 are made and the line adds "only the first 60 pages are made". Fewer characters, fewer "Rows per character" or a smaller "Square size" avoids that. Use the arrows to flip through the preview. The optional title (up to 60 characters) goes on top of each page with "Name" and "Date" lines, and it also names the file; with no title the file is called practice-sheet.pdf.

Common problems and how to fix them

It says "No Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters found. Use "Copy a passage" for other text."

In "One row per character" mode the tool keeps only Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters, and letters, digits and spaces are dropped. If your text has no such characters, nothing can be drawn. Type or paste characters, such as the sample, or switch to "Copy a passage", which keeps every visible character including Latin letters and punctuation.

It says "The PDF could not be made. Try fewer pages, or reload the page and try again."

The PDF is built in your browser, with each distinct character drawn as a 300 dpi image and the pages added one by one, so a large job asks a lot of your device. Follow the message: make fewer pages (fewer characters or fewer "Rows per character"), then press the button again. If it keeps failing, reload the page. The button shows progress like "Page 3 of 12…" while it works.

It says "The pinyin could not be loaded. Check your connection and switch it off and on again."

The pinyin reading data is a separate file, about 300 KB, that loads only when you tick "Pinyin above each row (Chinese)". If that download fails, the band is drawn without readings. Check your connection, untick the box and tick it again, and the tool retries. Pinyin also needs Chinese characters in the text, so it does nothing for kana-only text.

The page line says "only the first 60 pages are made" and my sheet is cut short.

One PDF holds at most 60 pages. The PDF itself does not mention the cut-off, so check the page count before printing. Split your text into two or more sheets, lower "Rows per character", or turn on "Each character once" if the same characters repeat. A smaller "Square size" also fits more rows on each page.

Some characters look different from the others, or the sheet is drawn in a plain device font.

The handwriting fonts are loaded from the site's models server, in slices for the characters on the sheet. "Regular script (楷书)" uses Ma Shan Zheng, which covers simplified characters, and falls back to Klee One for forms it lacks, such as traditional ones, so a few characters can look different. Try "Textbook (Klee One)" for a consistent look. If the font server is slow, characters can be drawn in your device's own font. Give the preview a moment to show the handwriting style and check your connection. Your text itself is not uploaded.

How it compares

You could build a grid in a word processor or print a ready-made worksheet. A word processor means building a table, sizing the squares and finding a suitable font, and a ready-made sheet only has the characters its author chose. This tool lays out the characters you type at an exact square size and gives you vector grid lines in a PDF. Its limits are real: it does not show stroke order, meanings or example words, the pages are portrait only, and the characters in the PDF are images, so the text cannot be selected or searched. Use a dictionary or stroke-order app next to it if the learner needs those.