Frequently Asked Questions
What is HanziPress?
HanziPress is a free, mobile-friendly toolkit for learning Chinese characters, building vocabulary, and practicing Chinese handwriting. It brings together printable worksheets and flashcards, interactive stroke-order practice, character lookup, and online learning tools in one place.
You can search Chinese characters by hanzi, pinyin, or English; watch stroke-order animations; practice tracing or writing from memory; and create printable, vector-based PDF worksheets from your own Chinese text. You can also make custom flashcards, explore HSK and textbook vocabulary decks, review words with spaced repetition, and organize your personal vocabulary. The free-hand handwriting tool lets you draw Chinese characters on a blank grid and have them recognized, while Hanzi Hop offers a word-chain game for exploring how Chinese characters combine into words.
HanziPress is designed for learners, teachers, and anyone who wants flexible ways to study Chinese online or on paper, with free tools for both digital practice and printable learning materials.
How does stroke order practice work?
Each character sits in a Tian Zi Ge grid. In Trace mode it shows as a faint outline to follow; in Write mode the outline disappears and you write the character from memory. Either way every stroke is checked for order and direction — a wrong stroke shows an orange hint and a shake, and each stroke you get right is drawn in its standard form, so the finished character is the model one.
Can HanziPress recognize Chinese characters I write by hand?
Yes. The Handwriting tool (hanzipress.com/handwriting) lets you write one character freely on a blank grid — with a mouse, trackpad, finger or stylus, in any stroke order. HanziPress recognizes what you wrote and shows the character with its pinyin and meaning, and you can tap an alternative if the first guess is wrong. Saving the character keeps your original handwriting, stroke by stroke, as a work with its own shareable link.
Does it include pronunciation and HSK levels?
Yes. Every practice card shows pinyin and, where available, an English gloss and the official HSK 3.0 level (HSK 1–6 and HSK 7–9). Tap the speaker button to hear the pronunciation.
What worksheet grid styles can I print?
Tianzige (田字格), Mige (米字格, with diagonals), and plain square grids in five sizes (about 15–27 mm cells), with optional pinyin, stroke-order breakdowns, and light tracing guides. You can add a Name · Date · Class header or a custom title.
Is it free?
Yes — the stroke-order practice tool, the free-hand Handwriting tool, and the worksheet PDF generator are all completely free to use, with no account or registration required.