Genkouyoushi Maker — printable Japanese manuscript paper

What is genkouyoushi?

Genkouyoushi (原稿用紙, “manuscript paper”) is the squared writing paper used all over Japan for essays, school compositions (作文, sakubun), book reports, and fiction drafts. The standard sheet is a grid of 400 squares — 20 columns of 20 squares — and each square holds exactly one character: a kanji, a kana, a punctuation mark, or a space. Because every character gets its own square, genkouyoushi doubles as a word counter: Japanese writers still describe the length of a piece in “sheets” (枚), where one sheet means 400 characters.

For Japanese learners, genkouyoushi is one of the best handwriting tools there is. The grid forces consistent character size and spacing, makes stroke balance easy to judge, and teaches the layout conventions you will meet in every vertically-set Japanese book. Many Japanese language classes and the sakubun sections of school entrance exams require it, so it helps to get comfortable with the format early.

This page generates printable Japanese writing paper directly in your browser — no PDF download from a stock-template site, no registration. Choose the grid you want, print it on A4 (or save it as a PDF for later), and you have authentic composition paper, complete with the traditional fish-tail mark (魚尾) in the center fold column.

How to write on genkouyoushi

Writing direction: top to bottom, right to left

Genkouyoushi is designed for vertical writing (縦書き, tategaki). Start in the top-right square of the page. Write downward, one character per square, until the column is full, then move one column to the left and start again from the top. Fill the whole page from right to left.

Title, name, and paragraphs

• Title: written in the first column, leaving the top 2–3 squares empty.
• Name: written in the second column, aligned toward the bottom, with one empty square below it and one square between family and given name. (This tool can also print dedicated 題名/名前 handwriting lines above the grid instead.)
• Body text: starts in the third column. Leave the first square of every paragraph empty — the Japanese equivalent of an indent. In the text layout mode, type a full-width space (　) at the start of each paragraph.

Punctuation and symbol rules

• The period 。 and comma 、 each occupy one full square, placed in the top-right corner.
• Punctuation and closing quotes/brackets (」 』 ）) must not appear at the top of a column. Squeeze them into the previous column’s last square or hang them just outside it — this rule is called kinsoku shori (禁則処理), and the text mode of this tool applies it for you.
• Opening quotes/brackets (「 『 （) must not sit in the last square of a column; move them to the top of the next column.
• Dialogue in quotation marks 「…」 traditionally begins on a new column.
• The long vowel mark ー and the small kana are one square each. In vertical writing, ー is drawn top-to-bottom.
• Numbers are usually written with kanji numerals (一, 二, 十五) in vertical text.

How to use this tool

1. Print blank sheets — keep the “Blank paper” tab selected, pick 400 or 200 squares, a grid color, and whether you want the title/name lines. Click “Print / Save as PDF”. For a PDF, change the print destination to “Save as PDF”.
2. Lay out Japanese text — switch to the “Lay out my text” tab and paste any Japanese text. It is typeset vertically with one character per square, punctuation rules applied, and the character count shown as “sheets + characters”. Long texts split into multiple A4 pages automatically.
3. Print at 100% — in the print dialog, set paper size to A4 and scale to 100% (actual size) so the squares print at their designed size. Turn off “headers and footers” if your browser adds the date or URL to the page margins.

Frequently asked questions

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