Getting started

minisheet is a character sheet builder for tabletop RPGs. Instead of a fixed template per game system, you lay out your own sheet on a grid, wire it up to data and formulas, and then use it at the table.

There's nothing to install — open app.minisheet.net in a browser. It works offline once loaded, and installs as a PWA if you want an app-like icon on your device.

A note on the examples: this guide uses examples drawn from D&D 5e (hit points, spell slots, ability scores, and so on) simply because they're familiar to most people. This in no way limits minisheet to D&D — it's a general-purpose sheet builder, and you can model any tabletop RPG system, or anything else you can put on a grid. The 5e references are just a convenient shared vocabulary.

The fastest way in: the guided walkthrough

The app has a built-in interactive walkthrough that loads a demo sheet and points out every panel described on this page. From the app's main menu, choose Start Walkthrough to run it. (Load Demo, just above it, drops you into the same demo sheet without the guided tour.) It's the quickest way to get oriented — the rest of this guide covers the same ground at your own pace.

Recommended workflow: start on your play device, finish on a computer

When you're building a sheet you intend to actually play with, the smoothest workflow is:

1. Start on the device you'll play on — often a phone or a tablet. Set the page grid size so it fits that device's screen well. Getting the page dimensions right is much easier when you're looking at the real display you'll use at the table.
2. Then switch to a computer to lay out the widgets and edit the background data and formulas. Every control is available on touch devices, but the process is far faster with a keyboard and mouse.

If you have cloud sync set up, your in-progress sheet follows you between devices automatically; otherwise you can export and re-import it to move it across.

Build mode vs. Play mode

Every sheet has two modes, toggled from the header:

• Build mode is where you design the sheet: place and resize widgets, edit page settings, and edit background data, formulas, and actions.
• Play mode locks the layout so you can't accidentally move or resize anything at the table. Only the interactive parts you configured — checkboxes, editable labels, buttons — remain interactive.

You'll spend most of your setup time in Build mode and most of your at-the-table time in Play mode.

The pieces of a sheet

• A sheet can have one or more pages, each with its own grid size and its own layout of widgets (labels, checkboxes, tables, buttons, and so on).
• All pages in a sheet share one pool of background data — the variables and tables that actually hold your character's values. A page is just a view into that data.
• Actions are optional, reusable operations (usually bound to a button) that update one or more background values at once — a rest button that restores hit points and spell slots, for example.

The next few guide pages walk through each of these in order:

1. Sheets, pages & modes
2. Widgets
3. Background data & formulas
4. Actions
5. Cloud sync & backup
6. Import & export
7. Controls & shortcuts

A minimal first sheet

If you'd rather learn by doing:

1. From the main menu, create a new sheet.
2. In Build mode, select the Data tab and add a background variable, e.g. a number called hp with value 10.
3. Switch back to the page canvas, click on the page to add a widget, and in the Inspector set its content to HP: {hp}.
4. Switch to Play mode. Your label now shows the live value of hp.
5. Back in Build mode, add a widget, switch the widget type to Checkbox and bind it to a new boolean variable — now you have a toggle that persists.

From here, Widgets and Background data & formulas cover everything else you can bind and compute.