Turn a crochet pattern into a follow-along project with a stitch chart

What is Rowline? It takes a crochet pattern you already have (a PDF, a photo, a website, or text you paste in) and turns it into something you can actually follow: numbered rows you tick off, counters, per-row notes, and where it can be drawn honestly, a chart. It runs in your browser and keeps your patterns on your device.

Open Rowline See how it works

It runs in your browser. Nothing to install, and no account needed to try it.

Rowline is in private beta. It is unfinished, it is run by one person, and the honest limits are listed further down this page rather than buried.

How it works

Import. Drop in a pattern PDF, a photo of a page, a link to a pattern page, or paste the text.
Review. Rowline shows you every row it extracted, flags the ones it is unsure about, and tells you what it could not read. Nothing becomes a project until you accept it.
Follow. The accepted pattern becomes a working project: mark rows done, track stitch and repeat counters, add notes to any row, and, for techniques Rowline can genuinely draw, read a generated chart alongside the written rows.

Rowline's import panel showing four choices: File (PDF or text file), Photo (camera roll, or an image file), Website (fetch a pattern page), and Paste text (copied from anywhere). — Pick the format you actually have. Pasted text is a first-class option, not a fallback.

Rowline's review screen headed "Do these rows match your pattern?", showing a Needs review banner with checks: Rows found, All rows present flagged because Rows/Rounds 4 may be missing, Row text is complete, Row numbers run in order flagged, and How sure Rowline is at 84 percent. — The review screen on a pattern with a gap. Row 4 is missing from the source, so Rowline says so and flags the import. It does not invent the row.

The follow view: written rows on the left with Row 1 ticked off and Row 2 marked current, beside a generated stitch-symbol chart on the right with the matching row highlighted. — Following a project. The chart tracks the row you are on; the written rows stay the source of truth.

Open Rowline with a demo pattern

It installs as a web app, works offline once loaded, and has a light and a dark theme.

The promise: it never fakes what it doesn't know

This is the whole point of Rowline, and it is the rule the code is written around.

Pattern-reading software is easy to make look impressive: fill the gaps, round the numbers, draw a chart that seems plausible. That is exactly what you cannot trust at row 84 with a ball of yarn already committed. Rowline goes the other way. If it can't read a stitch count, it says the count is not stated rather than inventing one. If a stitch has no honest symbol, it suppresses the symbol instead of substituting a similar-looking one. If a technique has no real chart renderer behind it, it refuses to draw the chart and says so. Output that looks more complete at the cost of being true is treated as a bug, not a feature.

In practice that means three things you can hold it to:

It never guesses your stitch counts. An unread count is shown as unknown.
It suppresses rather than substitutes. An unknown symbol is marked unknown; a chart it can't build honestly doesn't get built.
You approve every row before it counts. The review step is mandatory, and imports Rowline is unsure about are flagged as needing checking against your original.

Who it's for

Crocheters with a folder of bought PDFs who want to follow them without losing their place or scrolling a phone with sticky fingers.
Anyone who keeps a project on the go for weeks and needs progress and notes to still be there when they come back.
People working colorwork (mosaic, tapestry, filet, overlay) who want a chart alongside the written rows.
Anyone who would rather their patterns not be uploaded to someone else's server.

Where it stores things

Locally, by default. Your imported patterns, rows, notes and progress live in your browser's own storage on your device. There is an optional sign-in that syncs your saved projects to an account, and there is a "Download backup" button that writes them to a file you keep. The privacy page spells out exactly what leaves the device and on what trigger, verified against the code.

Known limits, honestly

Extraction is deliberately conservative. Rowline would rather leave a row flagged than confidently wrong. Expect to correct things at the review step. That step exists because it is needed, not as decoration.
Image-only PDFs need OCR, and OCR is imperfect. If a PDF has no text layer, Rowline offers a "Try OCR" button; the result often still needs manual completion, especially for scanned or photographed pages.
Some websites can't be fetched. Plenty of pattern sites block automated access. When that happens Rowline tells you and asks you to paste the page text instead, which works fine.
Charts only exist for techniques with a real renderer. Today that means standard rows, in-the-round/amigurumi, granny squares, mosaic and reversible mosaic, tapestry, filet, overlay, and garment schematics. Anything else is labelled "not supported yet" rather than given a chart that doesn't mean anything.
Multi-size (graded) patterns always require review. Rowline can detect graded sizing and let you pick a size, but it will not quietly decide which numbers are yours.
Complex garment construction is only partly modelled. Shaping, assembly and finishing text are surfaced where Rowline can identify them, and left in the original wording where it can't.
It's a beta. Things change, and browser storage is not a durable archive, so take backups.

FAQ

Is it free during the beta?

Yes. There is no paid plan and no card required. If that ever changes it will be announced before it applies to anyone.

Do my patterns leave my device?

Not by default. PDFs, photos and pasted text are read entirely inside your browser and are never uploaded. Two things do involve the network by their nature: importing from a link sends that link to Rowline's server so it can fetch the page for you, and running OCR downloads the recognition engine to your browser (the page image still isn't uploaded). If you choose to sign in, your saved projects sync to your account. Full detail on the privacy page.

Can I use patterns I bought?

Yes, that's the main use case. Import your own purchased PDFs. What you can't do is use Rowline to redistribute a designer's pattern, or to import something you have no right to. The designer's licence still applies to anything you export.

What if my pattern imports wrong?

The review step is where you catch it: edit the rows before accepting, and Rowline will already have flagged the parts it doubts. If the import is badly wrong, there's a report button that sends a diagnostic summary of how the import went (not your pattern text) so the parser can be fixed. Bad imports are the single most useful thing you can report during beta.

How do I back up my projects?

Use "Download backup" in the saved-projects panel. It writes a JSON file of your saved projects that you keep, and "Restore backup" reads it back, including into a different browser or a new device. Because everything lives in ordinary browser storage, clearing your browsing data will otherwise wipe it. Back up before major edits or a browser cleanup.

Following along

Every change a pattern-follower would notice is listed on the What's new page, newest first, along with the things Rowline deliberately doesn't do, and why. It's generated from the same changelog the code ships with, so it can't quietly fall behind.

Get in touch

Beta feedback, bug reports, "it read my pattern wrong", and requests for techniques Rowline doesn't support yet all go to feedback@rowline.app. There's also a feedback button inside the app.

Rowline is in private beta and takes a small number of testers at a time. If you'd like to try it on your own patterns, join the beta.