Printable Genkou Youshi (Free PDF)
Japanese manuscript paper drawn to the standard 400-character layout: twenty columns of twenty squares, written top to bottom and right to left.
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Genkou youshi is the paper Japanese composition is written on, and its rules are part of the writing: one character to a square, columns read from the right, titles and names placed by counting squares in. This sheet is drawn to the standard 400-character sheet - twenty columns of twenty squares - with the column run broken in the middle the way a printed genkou youshi is, so the halves are easy to count. The squares are about 9 mm on US Letter and 8.9 mm on A4, close to the commercial sheet.
By default a narrow gutter runs beside every column for furigana, the small reading glosses written next to a kanji. Turn it off and the columns sit square against each other, which some teachers prefer for handwriting practice and which makes each square a little larger. Either way the grid is drawn in the muted green of printed manuscript paper rather than black, so your writing stays the darkest thing on the page.
The rows are marked at 5, 10, 15 and 20 down the left edge and the ends of the column run are labelled col 1 on the right and col 20 on the left, so counting squares for a title line is quick. Everything derives from the page rectangle and is centred with equal margins. It is a sheet for a pencil - there is nothing to type into. One landscape page in US Letter or A4.
