The project file

A game you make here is yours, and so is the file it is kept in. Whole project, under Export & import in the editor, downloads all of it as a zip: the cards, how they are laid out, and every picture and font they use. This page says what is in that zip, so that a game can be printed, read by a script or taken to another tool without Card-a-mon. The examples are from the pond game the other guides follow.

What is in the zip

Printing without Card-a-mon

Open print.html, from the zip or after unzipping it, in a browser, and open the project's zip in it, or drop the zip on the page. It draws every card into images at the resolution you pick, with the same code the editor's image export uses, and it needs nothing but the browser: the code that draws the cards is inside the page, and the pictures and fonts are in the zip. A game kept as a zip can still be printed years from now, whether Card-a-mon is there or not.

project.json

project.json is the project exactly as the editor keeps it, with nothing made up for the export: what the file says is all there is to the cards. It is UTF-8 JSON. The pond game's starts like this, with some cards and fields left out (…):

{
  "format": "card-a-mon-project",
  "version": 2,
  "name": "Who Eats Whom? Pond Chain",
  "exportedAt": "2026-10-23T06:09:13.801Z",
  "cardSet": {
    "width": 63.5,
    "height": 88.9,
    "bleed": 3.175,
    "isTwoSided": true,
    "cardsAllIds": ["card-1", "card-2", "card-3", …, "card-13"],
    "cardsById": {
      "card-1": { "id": "card-1", "count": 2 },
      "card-11": { "id": "card-11", "count": 1, "layoutId": "layout-4" },
      …
    },
    "layouts": [
      {
        "id": "default",
        "name": "Plant cards",
        "fieldsAllIds": ["background", "cost", "title", "art", "type",
                         "rules", "flavour", "back", "back-title"]
      },
      …
      {
        "id": "layout-4",
        "name": "Rules",
        "fieldsAllIds": ["text", "page"],
        "width": 88.9, "height": 127, "cut": "square", "isTwoSided": false
      }
    ],
    "fieldsAllIds": ["background", "cost", "title", …, "text", "page"],
    "fields": {
      "card-1": {
        "title": {
          "id": "title", "type": "text", "value": "Duckweed",
          "x": 15.35, "y": 8.0375, "width": 46.65, "height": 4.125, "angle": 0,
          "fontFamily": "Cinzel", "fontVariant": "700", "fontSize": 3.6,
          "lineHeight": 1.1, "color": "#ffffff", "align": "left",
          "isOnBack": false, "locked": true
        },
        "art": {
          "id": "art", "type": "image",
          "name": "duckweed.jpg",
          "x": 6.95, "y": 15.65, "width": 55.95, "height": 36.138, "angle": 0,
          "imageWidth": 1264, "imageHeight": 816,
          "zoom": 0.0442867, "cx": -0.0142353, "cy": 0,
          "description": "tiny floating green duckweed leaves covering a patch of still pond water",
          "isOnBack": false, "locked": true
        },
        …
      },
      …
    },
    "game": {
      "description": "A quick classroom card game about life in a pond. …",
      "rules": "Competitive, 2 to 4 players, 10 minutes, ages 8 to 11.\n\n## Goal\n…"
    }
  },
  "images": [
    {
      "name": "duckweed.jpg",
      "file": "images/duckweed.jpg"
    },
    …
  ],
  "fonts": [
    { "family": "Cinzel", "variant": "700", "file": "fonts/catalogue/Cinzel-700.ttf", "catalogue": true },
    …
  ],
  "emoji": []
}

Units

• Lengths are in millimetres: the card size, the bleed, where fields are and their font sizes.
• A field's x and y are its top-left corner, measured from the top-left corner of the card with its bleed. On a 63.5 × 88.9 mm card with 3.175 mm of bleed, a frame covering the whole printed area is at 0, 0, and is 69.85 × 95.25 mm.
• Angles are in radians, clockwise, about the field's middle; x and y are where its corner is before it is turned.
• Colours are CSS hex colours, such as #1a1a1a.

The top level

cardSet

Layouts

A layout has an id, a name and fieldsAllIds, its fields in the order they are drawn, bottom first. A card with no layoutId is of the one whose id is default, or else the first. A layout of another size than the project's — the pond game's rules pages — has its own width, height, bleed, cut and isTwoSided; without them it is the project's.

Fields

Every card has its own copy of each field of its layout, so fields holds a field once for each card. The editor keeps a field's place and style the same on every card of a layout, and lets each card have its own words or picture. A back is no separate thing: a field with isOnBack: true is on the back.

Reading it in a script

Nothing but a JSON reader is needed. In Python, the pond game's cards with their copies and titles:

import json

with open("project.json") as f:
    project = json.load(f)
cards = project["cardSet"]
for card_id in cards["cardsAllIds"]:
    title = cards["fields"][card_id].get("title", {}).get("value", "")
    print(card_id, cards["cardsById"][card_id]["count"], title)

card-1 2 Duckweed
card-2 2 Pondweed
card-3 2 Water Lily
card-4 2 Water Snail
…

Download JSON only, beside Download zip, gives project.json on its own: small and readable, to keep in version control and compare from one version to the next.

Bringing it back

A zip, or a project.json with its pictures and fonts, imports into Card-a-mon again: as a new project with Import a project on your projects page, or over an open one in the Whole project dialog. A project.json changed by a script imports the same way, and so does the cardSet on its own, with no images or fonts listed. See the whole project as a file.

Where next

• Cards in a spreadsheet: Fill the cards in from a CSV file or a linked Google Sheet, and keep them there.
• Share and keep your work: A link that shows the cards to anybody, the history of every version, and the whole project as a file of your own.

All the guides. Questions or ideas: info@cardamon.lt.