Converting HeroMaker Characters to PDF

[Derek Hiemforth]

If you have character files stashed hither and yon in the old HeroMaker format (.cha was the usual file extension for such characters), here's one way to resurrect them for modern-day use.

(Please note that the following instructions refer to a PostScript-to-PDF conversion tool at the web site "ps2pdf.com". I am not affiliated with "ps2pdf.com", nor is Hero Games, or anyone else connected with the Hero Games site in any way. I don't know anything about the ps2pdf.com site, other than that it works for me. Use at your own risk. I'm sure there are other PS-to-PDF tools/methods out there you can find if you don't like this one.)

1. Open the character in HeroMaker. (This assumes you can still run HeroMaker on your modern machine, which might be an issue in and of itself.)
2. Go to More... Printer Preferences.
3. For Print Mode, select Print To Disk. For Printer, select Adobe Postscript. Other settings can be tweaked as desired... experiment until you find settings you like. Click Save when done.
4. Go to More... Print Character. HeroMaker will send the output to a file on your computer. By default, this will be "<character_name>.LST" and it will be saved in the same folder that the <character_name>.cha file is in.
5. Go to http://www.ps2pdf.com and click Convert.
6. Click Browse, navigate to the file that was created in step 4, select it, and click Open.
7. Click Convert.
8. Open or save the resulting PDF file as desired.

[gholkan]

Optionally, you could also do this:
1) Export your Hero Designer character to an RTF file.
2) Open the RTF file in Microsoft Word or your Word Processor of choice.
3) Choose Print from the file menu, but change the settings so that you print to a PDF.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Optionally, you could also do this:
1) Export your Hero Designer character to an RTF file.
2) Open the RTF file in Microsoft Word or your Word Processor of choice.
3) Choose Print from the file menu, but change the settings so that you print to a PDF.

My advice isn't about Hero Designer, the current Hero chargen software. It's about HeroMaker, the 15-year old 4th Edition Hero chargen software.

[Maur]

(Please note that the following instructions refer to a PostScript-to-PDF conversion tool at the web site "ps2pdf.com". I am not affiliated with "ps2pdf.com", nor is Hero Games, or anyone else connected with the Hero Games site in any way. I don't know anything about the ps2pdf.com site, other than that it works for me. Use at your own risk. I'm sure there are other PS-to-PDF tools/methods out there you can find if you don't like this one.)

Wow... long disclaimer for free software use, heheh. ps2pdf is a part of the Ghostscript package and it looks like ps2pdf.com just made its functionality available via a web interface.

http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/cvs/Ps2pdf.htm

You can download Ghostscript from http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ and then just convert the ps files right on your own system.

If you want to print straight to PDF and not pay for Acrobat to do it, try something like CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp) which also uses Ghostscript, but installs a "printer" on your system that you can just point any application to that uses the windows printer interface (guessing HERO Maker is probably an old DOS app).

[aylwin13]

If you want to print straight to PDF and not pay for Acrobat to do it, try something like CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp) which also uses Ghostscript, but installs a "printer" on your system that you can just point any application to that uses the windows printer interface (guessing HERO Maker is probably an old DOS app).

Another similar program is PrimoPDF. I haven't had any problems with it so far.

http://www.primopdf.com/

[Mathew]

Thanks! This worked great for me.