I'm active in the discord community of the Card Creator.
This guide is meant as a resource I can point people to.
It is not a complete guide about anything CC.
Somethings I will leave unmentioned.
This is just an aid to address common current issues,
as such I may add and remove sections.

The suggested size for cards is the American Poker Playing Card format, which is 3.5" x 2.5".
I second using this size. There are several reasons for this. For one, it is the card size, you will usually find a lot of support for in terms of things and services you can buy like sleeves, blank cards, and so on. But it is also mathematically speaking a good format to use, 7:5 (1.4).

As you may be aware, screens nowadays come in most popularly in 16:9 (1.77) format. As this seems to be very fitting for the human eyes. Some will attribute this to the magic of the golden ratio and whether or not that's the causation, we can say that some value around roughly the golden ratio (1.61) feels good.
There is another important number to consider. You see, whenever you fold a piece of paper in half, it's format changes. Lets say you have a square paper 1:1, if you fold it in half, you'll have 1:0.5 and if you fold it yet again, in half, it's 0.5:0.5, which is the same as 1:1. So every paper has these two formats it's switching between. However, if the format is 1 to the square root of 2 (1.41), the other format is the same. That is what the Din paper norm is based on.
The problem is that the square root of two is not a rational number, which means you always gotta round, if you want to use it. So, let's pick a good approximation, which is 7:5 (1.4), which is the Poker Card format.

You can then further assume that you want to have two areas, picture and text, which should be nice to look at. So, let's pick 16:10 for those... which leaves you with a bit of a rest in 3:20 (0.15) format, which you can just use as the title.

Long story short, in a world where there's always a bit of give and take, the Poker format performs as optimal as it can get. It is fairly adaptive, so even if you will in practice finally use cards in for example the German or Bridge format, it is still a good idea to design them in Poker format and then just project them on the other formats.

So far I've just talked about the format ratio, but not about the paper size itself. Maybe you want do design a Din A4 handout in the Card Creator? Still do design them as Poker Cards. Otherwise you will run into scaling problems, which I will explain in a separate section.

So, even though you *can* technically do other formats, just don't do it. It'll come back to bite you in several ways.




There is a certain weirdness, when it comes to the card creator in that it doesn't really give you the results you see, when editing cards. This comes down to how DPI are handled and the scaling of things.

While editing, you will see everything at it's purest and best. So for example, if you import an image with 600 dpi, you will see it as that. However, if you export the card which then might only have 300 dpi, the image will scale down only during the export. For images, this is not too relevant, except of course, you probably want to know the proper dpi setting in advance, but other than some minor imperfections, it's not a big deal.

The problem arises, when it comes to text and especially spaces contained in the text. These will produce a lot of scaling problems and the more you deviate from the intended Poker size, the larger these issues will get. For example, if you go for an A4 Paper (about 9 Poker cards), any text you see will have little to no representative value in terms of size. The text will still be on the paper, but forget any attempts at formatting it.

Sometimes even you might notice that text you have on a card while editing the card itself deviates from the text that is in the preview window of the collection view. What the export will finally do is anyone's guess.

The funny thing is, if you were to screenshot the card in the editing process and then make a new card that just contained the screenshot of the card, it would be forced to now give you "what you see".

For now just know that you cannot rely on your text being formatted accurately and the more you deviate from Poker Card size, the worse the problem gets.




Now, I use the Tabletop Simulator a lot and while it often infuriates me with bugs, glitches and missing support, it's still the best testing ground for all your stuff. In the realm of the blind, the one-eyed is king.

Now, a problem is that some of the particularities from the Tabletop Simulator flood over to the Card Creator. If you want to import a deck of cards into the TTS, it's based on certain templates that need to be filled out, which have a pre-set dpi. So now, if you want to Export from CC to TTS, the TTS template caps the dpi your cards can have.

Now usually, the cards people design in the CC are some type you might find in collectible card games. There is important text on them. For convenience's sake, you might want to import as many cards as possible to the TTS in as few steps as possible. Well, bad luck. Because if you go for the default maximum, your DPI are gonna be so low, the text will hardly be readable.

What I do now, is that I will export them in sets of 4x5 cards. That's a bit more work, yes, but it let's you adjust the DPI to a more practical amount.

Lately, there have been a couple of reports on problems with the export and import functionality. So, let's go over these, what's user error, what's avoidable and what's a bug. Usually, when something goes wrong, there are no error messages.



A lot of people claim to have issues with the CSV and Excel functionality. And it's very possible that there are some bugs on the loose here. However, there's also some things you can do to avoid user error.

Do not simply import things from a CSV or Excel file. What you first want to do is give *every* field on the blueprint a name. It doesn't matter which, it just needs to be unique and for your own sanity should not contain any spaces or special characters, most importantly, no commas or quotes.

Then do export your current set to CSV or Excel. The thus generated file is the one you will need to edit and can import back to the CC.

If there is still a problem, do report it to Fali with files, logs and all, so the issue can be traced.




As I explained earlier, what you see is not what you get. Your cards will get compiled into what will be seen in the final export. In the current version, sometimes the compiler will fail, crash or get stuck. This can happen seemingly randomly, but we know that you can influence your odds.
If the compiler has some extreme work to do, like make too many adjustments to the text because there's just too much text on to little space, it might crash. Someone had put 100 or so tiny-fied icons on one card, that caused a crash as well.
So, don't get too wacky. The CC is meant to make it easy for you to put content on cards based on a shared blueprint. It is not intended as a makeshift photoshop.

There's a bug in the CC that has been there for ages. And it's a bit weird as it will take you a moment to realize what is going on.

If you've ever watched speedruns of some classic video games, you might find something like the player picking up and item while also triggering a transition to the next level and suddenly he gets miraculously warped to the last bossmonster. What happens there is that the item should get saved to his inventory, but the level transition is also happening, the game is confused, stores the item in the access to the level and then the player warps to the code of the item, which the game will interpret as the final boss.

While that is all fun in a speedrun of a game. It's not so fun when that happens to your project. So, beware "ye olde". Sometimes the CC gets confused, which state it is in. Usually the confusion is which "window" is actually shown an interacted with, but I've heard reports of other spooky stuff as well. So, in this most prominent form, the bug will cause you interact with the interface in other ways than intended. For example, you might want to edit a card and the CC treats it like the icon gallery. Sometimes it's just the position of the cursor that off. Nevertheless, you will notice some weirdness.

The solution is trivially simple. Just restart the CC. But there is a bit more we need to talk about. And that is when this happens and whether you should hit the "save" button first.

So, what seems to cause the bug is when you do something while a transition animation is happening. For example, you might be a bit too fast and eager when clicking on the icon gallery. I often trigger it by adjusting the grid and making cuts and realigning them. In that case often the cursor just stays scissors or the cut-marker is off. Generally, when you make a new project, you will encounter "ye olde" more or less at random.

It is most important that you gain an awareness of this happening. When you notice it early, just save your project, restart and you're good to go. It's an annoyance, sure, but it's not critical.
However, if you encounter "ye olde" and you decide to ignore it and fiddle some more with your project without restarting, probably out of sheer confusion. Well, then you can get in trouble. Because you might now make changes, that will corrupt your save data. Basically what's happening is that the CC is confused and saves the data in a way that makes sense for it *now*. But once the CC restarts, that confusion is gone and it will be unable to load the project. Or maybe it still can and only parts are corrupted. It's like dreaming, when you dream, you interact with the dream in a way that makes sense there. When you wake up most of it doesn't make sense any more.

The CC does make automatic backups. So, even if you just have to alt-f4 the CC, the data loss might be minimal. However, if you corrupt your project data, so it can't load at all, it might be a bit more tricky to access your data again.

The card creator is really great for prototyping your card project. As for bugs, you'll find a description of the prominent ones in the other sections of this guide.

There's a new software in development, the Tabletop Creator. While it will feature some cross compatibility with the Card Creator, it is planned to eventually overtake the functionality, so the CC will become redundant. That migration to a new software is also a necessity, because the support for some building blocks of the software used to create the CC has ceased and that puts a lock on Pixelatto's ability to support the CC. Some bugs may still get patched, but some features can't be added anymore.

With a small dev team, there's also the problem that you've having to split resources between building the next iteration, supporting the CC and some tweaks to to promote their board-game side-project. So development for the CC has taken a dip. Support is still there, but furthering the CC is currently not priority.

However, the utility the software provides is just great, with the main feature being that you can create a blueprint and add content to the individual cards rather quickly, so you only change what really needs changing. And it really is an excellent software to use until you arrive at you final design.
I always compare the CC to duct-tape. It's fast, easy to use and versatile. There are even some projects which are best solved by just using duct-tape. But you can't build a house from it.

These question have come up recently a couple of times whether there are some special Terms Of Service clause, hidden fees or royalties - something like that - that will gonna haunt you if you produce and publish with the CC.

The short answer is no, with a minor caveat. So, to be clear, there are no fees or royalties or anything you have to pay or should be, when using the CC and publishing your work - at least from Pixelatto's side. You just pay the normal store cost to own a copy and that's it.

So, the usual terms of service from steam do apply, but that's a given anyway and they have no impact on any "hidden" costs or something.

The card creator does feature icons from game-icons.net. For those icons their terms of service might apply, but they don't contain any hidden costs or something either. They just provide you with the free icons and you can do whatever you want with it.
However, they want to be credited. In how far this is iterative, is questionable. Pixelatto has used their icons, so they need to credit. But you're using Pixelatto's software without having read the terms of service on game-icons.net So, it's debatable. Then again, giving credit is really not much to ask.

However, do note that your local laws may still apply. For example, there's a law in the making in Germany that you'll have to pay royalties for using free media content to the German officials. In how far that will apply to this case is questionable.

Furthermore CC does not add metadata to the images it puts out, so it's note really traceable that your cards were even made with the CC. And aside from that the chances that a 1d6 people small indie studio is gonna chase you with an army of lawyers is pretty slim as well.

The CC may have a lot of features, but it can't do everything. Every now and then, you'll have people designing cards with some special borders branching into the image and whatnot, effects, yare yare yare.

The CC isn't really meant to do all these things. What it's good at is making parts of your card interchangeable, so you can build a deck out of them. Yes, there are some card designs you can accomplish using only the CC, but there are limitations.

The way I recommend doing things is getting these free softwares:
paint. net
inkscape
gimp

paint. net is really replaces your standard paint program, being quick to use and while offering a lot of options to edit and cut images. Gimp has tons of features, but I find it always pretty sluggish to use, yet for pixel-precise alignment of things, it's king. And inkscape is just increadibly useful in a lot of ways. It's mainly a vector image program, but it can do so much more. Want a to turn a circle into pac-man and watermark your work with that? It can do it. Really for most things in terms of designing your individual components your cards are made of, I can't recommend inkscape enough.

So my modus operandi is using these three programs to create the "skeleton" of the card I would be using. Like all the borders and regions and stuff and then have a transparent section where the picture will be. I then import that as an image into the CC stretching over the entire card. I then align the grid as needed with that skeleton, cut the cards into the fields as needed. Then I'll create a layer below the skeleton, where I will insert the picture and a layer above where I will insert anything that comes "on top" like text and so on. On the layer of the skeleton, I will lock all fields, so I'll avoid miss-clicks, when editing the children of that blueprint.

I get a lot of questions that sometimes people want to rather use an image instead of an icon or vice versa. For example, the "variables" will only accept images and disregard the icon gallery.

There is a surprisingly simple answer to all these kinds of questions, you just need to know how the data is handled. Three locations are relevant to take note of:
- the folder, where the CC itself is saved.
- the folder, where windows saves fonts.
- the folder, where your project is saved.

First off, the CC will read the fonts from Windows, which are installed "for all users". If you have a font not showing up in CC, it's likely the result of that font being only installed for a single user. There is nothing obscure you need or can do in CC itself to import fonts into it.

Similarly, all the icon gallery really is, is just a subfolder with png images in the main CC directory. The CC will just read the folder structure and list every png accordingly. You can manipulate that directory as you please. But keep in mind that the icons are usually 512x512 pixel pngs, which are white on transparent background. If you choose different colors, this will affect the results of the recoloring in CC. Also, if you let the images get too big, you'll notice a performance drop.
Also keep in mind that any changes to the icon gallery will affect all your projects and if you reinstall the CC, these changes will obviously not be transferred automatically.

People often make the mistake of assuming the project they save is just the cc file. It is not, that is only the file you direct the CC to to open the project. The project itself is a folder structure. If you put an image into that folder structure in windows and then import it into the CC, the CC just uses the path you've designated for it. If you use an image from outside that folder structure, it will automatically create a copy inside the folder structure.

Also note that you can edit a lot of stuff manually by opening files with notepad++ or any equivalent editor. It's all saved rather plainly. You usually don't need to, but it gives you an extra level of control.

So, to answer the example question from earlier. You can put an icon gallery image into a variable by just referring to the png file in the icon gallery subfolders of the CC directory.

The general takeaway however is this: Only use the icon gallery for prototyping. It is usually better to have the icons you actually need as an image file in the project folder. That will ensure that you actually have "all the data" in your project folder.
On the other hand, if you have only one card project you really work on, you can manipulate the icon gallery to your liking. However, you need to keep in mind that your data is now split between two locations.