Hugely disappointed.

[Teldil]

Just purchased Hero Lab after using PcGen for a while...
It runs much smoother and is overall better when building your character.

However....the character sheet output in Hero Lab is SO bad in comparison...I'm regretting my purchase. It looks so amateurish...I don't understand.

I've tried using some of the very few custom sheets but they all use HTML and its a head ache trying to convert them to PDF without it (expletive deleted) it up.
and honestly, none of the custom sheets are even as good as the PcGen sheets.

Is there anything I'm missing? I'm honestly regretting my purchase...Why does a $30 plus dollars software produce such a shitty sheet compared to a free one?

Hero Lab even cuts the feat\trait\ability descriptions in the middle of it for no apparent reason. If its longer than 3 lines it gets cut (see fav enemy and wild empathy). wtf?

[Korlen]

Speaking only as another Hero Lab user, I'd be more receptive to your comparison if it featured the same character (clean language also helps). Regardless, you might benefit by also printing out the statblock, or head out to d20pfsrd and get the sheet by AncientOne. I don't use a paper copy, but other forum users really seem to like it. I use Hero Lab Play on my iPad Mini, so I get full descriptions with a tap of the finger.

You've already spent the money, so why not give the AncientOne customizable sheet a try? Regardless, I hope you find something that works.

[bodrin]

Okay.

Deep breath, the printout does lack at times. It has atendency to cut the ability descriptions as you have noticed.

However there is an option to print out all the abilities that your character has this appears on a seperate sheet.

It's in the print screen where you have the option to print spells and abilities.

Oh and expletives really aren't necessary to get the point across.

[Korlen]

The link to AncientOne's sheet is "Custom Character Sheets" in Bodrin's sig.

[rob]

If you don't find output that you like, we offer a 100% money-back guarantee. There are tens of thousands of Hero Lab players that seem to feel that the various output options we offer work well for their needs. In fact, we've had our output praised by many users over the years, but character sheets are a very subjective thing. There also appear to be output configuration options available on the Configure Hero form that you have not yet tried, so I recommend experimenting with those to find something that hopefully meets your needs. If that fails, simply submit a ticket to support and ask for a refund.

Oh, and please clean up your language or your posts will be moderated or deleted in the future. You're welcome to say you don't like something, but do so with appropriate language for a public forum. Thanks in advance for complying with this request.

[Dwayne]

I agree that the output for Herolab could be much better but if you want to make your point to others you need to use clean language and compare both systems with the exact same character. If you can show a big difference maybe Lone Wolf will listen and improve the output for HL.

[usiel]

"Ugh. Hard copy." ~The Plague

[Aaron]

Hey, no trolling now.

[LazarX]

Originally Posted by rob

If you don't find output that you like, we offer a 100% money-back guarantee. There are tens of thousands of Hero Lab players that seem to feel that the various output options we offer work well for their needs. In fact, we've had our output praised by many users over the years, but character sheets are a very subjective thing. There also appear to be output configuration options available on the Configure Hero form that you have not yet tried, so I recommend experimenting with those to find something that hopefully meets your needs. If that fails, simply submit a ticket to support and ask for a refund.

Oh, and please clean up your language or your posts will be moderated or deleted in the future. You're welcome to say you don't like something, but do so with appropriate language for a public forum. Thanks in advance for complying with this request.

Teldil chose a lousy way to express himself but he does have a point. Herolab scores way ahead in material support, but telling someone to use AncientOne's sheets doesn't really cut the mustard here. As it is it takes three print operations to create three separate files what PCGen outputs as a single file. I've brought this up before in considerably more polite form and I assume that the Ability and Gear output options were an attempt to respond.

What AncientOne's output option does show is that Herolab can do a better job than it presently does when it comes to output. PCGen should be the benchmark you should be aiming as a commercial product to not only equal... but surpass.

On MacOS it's easy to make PDFS from AncientOne's sheet because PDF is a native format for us. But the output is lacking in organization and aesthetics.

Teldil chose a bad way to express himself, but he's not wrong.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by LazarX

On MacOS it's easy to make PDFS from AncientOne's sheet because PDF is a native format for us. But the output is lacking in organization and aesthetics.

Its super easy on windows also. A dozen different free PDF Printer applications exist that lets you print to a PDF printer and it makes a PDF of whatever you print. I use PrimoPDF but plenty of others to choose from. If you select the same file again PrimoPDF asks if you want to even append.

Personally sense you can move sections around with AncientOne's sheet it was the go to sheet for my group for a long time. Now that we all use iPads or laptops I have not looked at the paper sheets in a long time.

I recently introduced another group to AncientOne's sheet instead of the built in HL one and its all they use now. So I can't think its all that bad. The key thing to remember is NOT to use IE. IE is not a web browser. Its ONLY purpose is to download real web browsers. So make sure you are using a modern web browser like FireFox or Chrome if you have any issues with AncientOne's sheet.

XSLT/HTML is not really all that bad to work with. Lots of articles on it to learn on the net. So you can always make your own 100% custom sheet if you wanted. About 2 years ago this was the HUGE threads here at HL forums was begging for custom sheets. Been pretty quite sense we got it...