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Blank guitar chord chart: empty diagrams to fill in

A blank guitar chord chart is a page of empty chord diagrams, waiting for the shapes you are working on. Set how many fit on a sheet, how big they are and how much room sits under each one, then print it or save a PDF. The preview below redraws as you change a setting. No account, nothing to install, like the rest of our free guitar tools.

Blank chord chart
Columns x rows is the printed grid. The default, 4x5 with diagrams of 112 px, puts 20 of them on a single A4 sheet, which suits a reference page. For a lesson sheet you write on, try 3x4 at 132 px: fewer diagrams, and room under each for a fingering and a reminder.

What you can set

Every setting under the preview, and what it changes on the printed sheet. The preview redraws on each change, so you can try one and look rather than read.

Setting What it does
Columns x rows of diagrams How many diagrams a sheet holds, written as columns then rows. The default, 4x5, prints 20 of them on one A4 page.
Diagram size px The side of a single diagram. Bigger diagrams mean fewer per sheet, and more room to write a fingering or a note underneath.
Nut thickness px The weight of the thick line at the top. A heavier nut reads better once the diagrams get small.
Spacing X and Y px The gap between diagrams, across and down. The vertical gap is where the chord name and your own notes go, so give it room.
Chords to draw Empty by default, which is what gives you blank diagrams. Type one chord per line and the sheet prints them already drawn.
Orientation and outer margin Landscape fits more columns side by side, which suits comparing voicings. Portrait fits more rows, which suits a reference sheet.
Title, footer and font A heading at the top and a line at the bottom, in the font, size and weight of your choice.
Colors and theme Text, lines and page background, one by one, or one of the ready themes: classic light, ivory paper, soft dark.
Export Print / PDF opens your browser print dialog, where you can print or save a PDF. Export PNG and Export SVG save image files instead, one per sheet.

One thing is not a setting, and it is worth knowing before you print: a diagram here is always 6 strings and 5 fret spaces, starting at the nut. That covers the open chords and the barre shapes in the first position. For a voicing higher up the neck, write the starting fret beside the diagram yourself, the way printed chord books do.

How to fill in a chord diagram

The diagram is the neck seen head on, with the headstock at the top: the strings run vertically, from the lowest on the left to the highest on the right, and the frets run across. Your low E string is the left hand edge of the picture, which is the one thing that confuses almost everyone at first.

What you draw What it means
x above a string Do not play it. Mute it with a finger or avoid it with the pick. Write it in the row above the diagram.
o above a string Play it open, with no finger on it. Open strings are what make the first shapes ring.
A dot on a string Press that string, in that fret space. Put the dot between two fret lines, not on one.
1 to 4 inside a dot Which finger presses there. 1 is the index, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger.
A line across several strings A barre: one finger, usually the index, lying flat across them in the same fret.
The thick line at the top The nut, where the fretboard ends and the tuning pegs begin. Every printed diagram starts there.
The numbers down the right side The frets, counted from the nut, 1 to 5.

A working order, if you are filling a sheet from your own playing: name the chord first, then mark the strings you do not play, then the dots with a finger number in each, then the barre if there is one. Doing it in that order stops the commonest error on a handwritten sheet, which is a correct shape with no x markers: played on the wrong strings, it sounds wrong even though every finger is right.

Going the other way, from a shape under your fingers to a clean drawn diagram, is a job for a generator. Our guitar chord finder draws any chord you name, in several positions on the neck, so you can check a shape against it before you copy it onto a sheet by hand.

Other blank sheets

The same generator prints several kinds of music paper. Two of them are in English so far.

  • Blank tab paper: tablature staves from four to eight strings, for riffs, exercises and anything you work out note by note.
  • Guitar chord chart: the same grid, but already filled in with the essential open and barre chords. Print that one as a reference and keep the blank sheets for your own shapes.

Two more pages belong to the same job of writing music down rather than reading it off a screen. How to read guitar tabs covers the notation these sheets are filled in with, symbol by symbol, and our guitar tab maker does it on screen when you would rather type a riff than draw it, with playback so you can hear whether you wrote what you meant.

Blank staff paper, a chord grid for arrangements, a staff and tab sheet and a full fretboard diagram exist on the French side of the site. They are the same generator and they are not translated yet, so this page does not link them.

Frequently asked questions

What is printed on a blank chord chart sheet?
A grid of empty chord diagrams. Each one is 6 vertical string lines, 5 fret spaces, the thick nut line at the top, a row above it for the x and o markers, space for the chord name, and the fret numbers down the right side. Nothing else: the dots, the fingers and the barres are yours to add.
How do I print the sheet or save it as a PDF?
Use the Print / PDF button under the settings. Your browser print dialog opens, and from there you can send the sheet to a printer or save it as a PDF file. Export PNG and Export SVG give you image files instead, one per sheet. Everything happens in your browser: there is no account, nothing to install, and the sheet never leaves your machine.
Can I print a sheet with the chords already drawn?
Yes. The text field at the bottom of the settings takes one chord per line, in the format name | strings | dots | barre, and the sheet draws them. If you want the common shapes rather than your own, our guitar chord chart is that sheet, already filled in and readable on screen.
Does it work for ukulele or bass?
Not as it stands: a diagram here is always 6 strings, because it is a guitar sheet. For a four string instrument, players usually print it anyway and ignore the two outer lines, which works but wastes space. We would rather say so than pretend the setting exists.

Who made this

Guitar Social Club is the work of Yohann Abbou, a guitar teacher in Paris. He teaches adults, which shapes everything here: people with jobs, limited practice time and a clear idea of the songs they want to play. These sheets exist because drawing a chord grid by hand, lesson after lesson, is a waste of a lesson, and because a fixed PDF never has the number of diagrams you want. The rest of our free guitar tools work the same way, and none of them asks you to sign up first. There is more on who he is and why this site exists in about Guitar Social Club.