Regular script · worksheet · Published 2026-09-08 · By The Lettering Desk
米字格 practice sheet: 26 mm cells, 48 characters per page
A 米字格 is a square with a centre cross and both diagonals ruled inside it — the eight guide lines that give it its name. It is the standard grid for regular script because it marks the centre, the four mid-points and the four corners, which is enough to place any stroke in a Chinese character without counting millimetres.
- Glyph
- 米 — 米字格 practice sheet — regular script
- Hand
- Regular script
- x-height
- —
- Nib / brush angle
- —
- Tool
- 兼毫中楷（锋径约 6 毫米）或 0.7 毫米中性笔
- Stroke order
- 打印 → 校对格径 → 书写 → 复盘（4 strokes）
Sheet specification
The plate that accompanies this page is generated to the following numbers and prints at A4 without scaling.
| Parameter | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | A4, 210 × 297 mm | prints on any household printer at 100 % |
| Margin | 16 mm on all four sides | most printers cannot reach closer than 10 mm |
| Cell size | 26 mm square | comfortable for a 6 mm brush and for hard-pen practice alike |
| Grid | 6 columns × 8 rows = 48 cells | unhurried for one sheet of one exercise |
| Guide lines | centre cross + both diagonals, hairline | visible under the paper but not competing with the ink |
| Rule weight | 0.7 pt, grey #d8d4cc | photocopies without turning into black lines |
| Header | title, date, and a blank name field | a dated sheet is the only way to see progress after a month |
Why 26 mm and not 100 mm
Beginners often start on oversized grids, on the theory that a large character is easier to see. The opposite is true: at 60 mm the brush has to travel far enough that the wrist takes over from the forearm, and the character gets written from the fingers. A 26 mm cell is the size at which the whole character is drawn with one continuous arm movement and the 米字格 still has room for the diagonals to be readable.
It is also the size at which a page of 48 characters is a realistic single sitting. Sheets larger than that get abandoned halfway, and a half-finished practice sheet is worse than a small complete one.
Printing it correctly
- Print at 100 % or 'actual size' — never 'fit to page', which rescales the grid to whatever the printer's margin allows.
- Check the printed cell with a ruler before writing on it: measure across three cells and divide by three. If it is not 26 mm, your print settings are scaling.
- Use 80 gsm paper for hard pen and 100 gsm or heavier for brush work; a wet brush will cockle thin paper and the grid will no longer sit under the stroke.
- Print a batch of twenty sheets at once and keep them loose. Sheets in a pad curl at the spine and the curl shows up in the writing.
How to use one sheet
Fill the first row with slow, deliberate characters, one cell each, checking against the centre cross after every stroke. Fill the second row at your normal speed. Rows three and four should be at the fastest speed at which the character still holds its shape — this is the row that teaches you anything, because it exposes which stroke you do not actually control.
Leave the last row of the sheet empty, then write it from memory a day later. Characters that survive a night without the model are the ones that have been learned rather than copied.
- Row 1 — slow, guided, one character per cell.
- Rows 2–4 — normal to fast; stop when a stroke degrades twice in the same way.
- Row 5 — the same character at half size, in the four corner quadrants of a single cell.
- Row 8 — written from memory, the following day.
Printable A4, drawn to the worksheet specification — print at 100 % and check one cell with a ruler.
Takeaways
- 26 mm cells, 6 × 8, A4, 16 mm margins — print at 100 % and verify with a ruler.
- The 米字格 marks centre, mid-points and corners: enough to place any stroke.
- One sheet should be one exercise, not a page of different characters.
- Always date the sheet; progress is invisible without dates.