Renmen Two sheets of paper, side by side. The model on the left, your practice on the right. That is all this app is. 

Free - No ads - No network - Nothing is collected For iPad. It also runs on iPhone and Mac. 

■ It does not end at the screen

You practise on a tablet, you get better, and that is where most apps stop.

This one carries the practice through to paper.

Lay a sheet on the screen and trace the model showing through it. Photograph the

finished sheet and lay it over the model to see what to fix. The screen and the

paper become one practice, not two.

There are four small corner marks on the trace board. Put a pencil dot on each

before you start. The sheet can always go back where it was, and those same four

dots line the photograph up afterwards. One dot does both jobs.

When the paper is not see-through, turn it the other way round. Put the iPad on a stand above the paper and lay the model over the paper it shows. An address on an envelope, a name on a gift envelope, a single character on a shikishi board: each becomes part of the same practice.

■ Four ways to practise

1. Write on the screen

   With a finger or a pen. Pressure and speed make the line swell and thin.

   Strokes enter narrow and lift away at the end.

2. Lay paper on the screen and trace

   For pencil, felt-tip and brush pens. Ink soaks through Japanese paper and

   would reach the glass, so a real ink brush cannot be used here.

   Lock the screen and resting your hand will not draw.

3. Photograph what you wrote and compare

   The model appears in a light colour and your writing stays black, so the

   screen never turns into a red-pen correction. Photographs are never saved.

4. Put the iPad on a stand and write under the camera

   Place the iPad screen-up on a stand about 20 cm high. The rear camera shows the

   paper below it, with the model laid over it in a light colour.

   Watch the screen and write straight onto the paper, including paper you cannot

   see through: envelopes, gift envelopes, shikishi, tanzaku, notebooks.

   For brush pens, markers and pencils. With a large brush, the tip is hidden

   behind the handle from the camera's view, which makes it hard to follow.

■ Tracing is not on and off

The model fades on a continuous scale, from full black down to nothing.

Darker today. One notch lighter tomorrow. A child can be given as much support

as they need and a little less each time, without anyone announcing it.

This app was made for children who find writing hard. The one thing it insists

on is never taking the support away all at once.

■ Choosing a model

- Type the text

- Photograph a model. A sheet written by hand becomes a model as it is, with the

  dry-brush marks and the grain of the paper still in it

- Choose from the Jiucheng Palace Inscription (九成宮醴泉銘), all 1,109 characters,

  by the order of the text or by character

Paper sizes are held in real millimetres: hanshi, hankaishi, hansetsu, yatsugiri,

shikishi, tanzaku. The app shows how many millimetres the sheet is on screen right

now, so you can cut real paper to match.

■ Made to be usable

- Left-handed layout. The model moves to the right, so your writing hand does not

  cover it

- Guide lines are blue by default. Red can be hard to see with some kinds of

  colour vision. Red is still there for anyone who wants to match a textbook

- The grid can be resized by pinching

- Support is reduced on a continuous scale, not switched off

- Four languages, switched on the spot: Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese and

  Brazilian Portuguese

- The trace board and write-under-the-camera controls sit at the bottom of the

  screen and can be hidden. Hiding or locking never moves the paper, so it stays

  lined up with the sheet you placed

- The camera view can be moved left, right, up or down, so your writing hand does

  not cover it

■ Nothing is collected

- No network. The app never connects to anything

- No account, no sign-in

- No advertising

- No in-app purchases

- Photographs of a child's work are held in memory only. They are never written to

  the photo library and never leave the device

- The camera view in write under the camera is never recorded or saved. The camera

  stops when you close the screen

There is no server behind this app, so there is nothing for anyone to ask for.

■ A printable guide

One A4 sheet, in Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese.

A QR code on the sheet installs the app.

The Chinese and Portuguese sheets can be handed to a family who does not read

Japanese, as they are.

■ About fonts

No calligraphy fonts are bundled with the app. Load your own .ttf or .otf file and use it for the model.

Besides the fonts already on your iPad, there are free brush-style and handwritten fonts.

- Yuji Syuku / Yuji Boku / Yuji Mai

  Based on brush writing by the calligrapher Yuji Kataoka. The three share the same kanji; the kana differ.

- Klee One

  Handwritten regular script, as if written with a pencil or pen.

All are published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and are free to use.

▸ Installing them on iPad

1. Open the Google Fonts page in Safari.

   Yuji Syuku  https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Yuji+Syuku

   Yuji Boku   https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Yuji+Boku

   Yuji Mai    https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Yuji+Mai

   Klee One    https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Klee+One

2. Tap "Get font", then "Download all". A zip file is saved to Downloads in the Files app.

3. Tap the zip in the Files app to open it. Inside is a file ending in ".ttf".

4. Open Renmen and tap the settings button at the top right. Under Loading fonts, tap "Add a font file (.ttf / .otf)" and choose the file from step 3.

5. In the same settings screen, choose the font under "Model font". The model changes.

▸ Good to know

- Some characters in the Jiucheng Palace Inscription are variant forms cut into the stone and are not in the font. They appear faded in the Classic list.

- Loaded fonts are used inside this app only. They are not added to other apps on your iPad.

- Remove them with "Remove all loaded fonts" in Settings.

■ Who made this

A schoolteacher in Japan, working alone, outside work hours.

It is free and it will stay free. There is no advertising, no in-app purchase and

no donation button, and there never will be. Nothing is collected and nothing is

sent anywhere.

If it is useful in your classroom, please use it.

Privacy Policy

Renmen does not collect, store or transmit any personal information.

The app has no network capability. It does not connect to any server, and no

account or sign-in exists.

Camera and photo library

The app can use the camera and the photo library so that a model written on paper,

or a sheet a child has written, can be brought into the app. Images are held in

memory while the app is open and are used only to display a model or to lay the

writing over a model. They are never written to the photo library and never leave

the device. Closing the screen discards them.

Fonts

Font files you choose are read from your device and registered while the app runs.

They are not copied anywhere else.

Settings

Your settings and the models you create are stored on your device only.

Children

This app is intended to be used by children as well as adults. It collects nothing

from anyone, of any age.

Contact

renmen.app@gmail.com

Last updated: 2026/10/07