Password Card

Print the A4 PDF at 100 % / "actual size", cut out the card (85.60 × 53.98 mm), fold and glue it.

How it works

The mix of upper- and lowercase letters, digits and symbols on your card is your personal starting point for secure passwords. You choose one secret pattern and use it for all your passwords. The same pattern works for every login, but each password starts at a different position on the card. Even if someone sees your card, they cannot read your passwords without your secret pattern.

Step 1 Find the start cell

Go to the column of the first letter of the website and to the row given by its number of letters.

Example: www.btslgk.com starts with "B" and has 6 letters, so go to field B6. The character there, and therefore the first character of the password, is 2.

The letters i/j, p/q and x/y share a column.
Names with more than 10 letters: use the last digit of the length (12 letters → row 2, 10 or 20 letters → row 10).

Step 2 Follow your secret pattern

Place the start of your pattern on that character and follow the pattern to read the rest of the password.

Example pattern: 4 right, then 5 down (→ → → → ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓), which gives 2gkj=VSGdJ.

When the pattern reaches an edge of the card, continue on the opposite side, as in this example.

Step 3 Optional: add your own rule

Personalise the password with a simple fixed rule, for example a "X" in second position and a "-" in second-to-last position:

2Xgkj=VSGd-J

Tip: put a digit and a symbol in your rule (for example "7" and "-") so every password meets the usual "digit + symbol" requirements of websites.

Choosing a good pattern

Use at least 10 characters, more is better.
Change direction at least twice; avoid plain straight lines, which are the first patterns an attacker would try.
Do not use the example pattern shown on this page.
Keep your pattern in your head: never write it on the card or next to it.

The card is generated from the cryptographic random generator of the server and is not stored. Characters on the card: letters, digits and !#$%*+-=?@; look-alike characters I, l, 1, O and 0 are left out.