If so. What formats will be available? I am thinking about exporting characters to be imported to various vtt’s
We’re not quite ready to share all of those details yet, but having connections between NEXUS and VTTs is certainly planned. Our primary focus at this point is still on completing the core functionality for the character tools. We’ll share more details when we’re ready to. 
Then my question would be what is this used for other than creating characters which can be done for free in other places.
The point, for the time being, is completing the core functionality. The character creation tool for pathfinder is still on alpha stage. As such, right now is more about detecting where the tools can be improve rather than the tools being table ready. That will come in due time along with the export functionalities.
So I guess what you are saying is the product isn’t really ready to be useful? I’m not sure I understand. It costs money now but it’s not ready to use? Honestly I’m lost here.
The character creator is free to use, I have used it since before getting the core rulebook. The books cost money, and they are ready to use. The Demiplane team has always been clear that the character creator is in closed alpha and that they want feedback and know that it does not have all the functionality that it will have.
While I’m not really following your question before this one, no - this is not the case. The product is imminently useful at this stage in the Early Access phase.
Not to speak for them, but I imagine deltaarena was referring to completing the core functionality in regards to your question about why we are making character tools.
The platform will be “fully launched” once we have three foundational features in place - the Digital Reader, the Game Compendium, and the Character Tools (builder and digital character sheet). At this point, the Digital Reader and Game Compendium are out and we have received plenty of confirmation that they are indeed useful. The Character Tools are in a Closed Alpha, so that’s the part that is not ready for release quite yet.
To borrow your phrase - I’m lost here.
A cursory glance around any of the NEXUS homepages or clicking into the Sources or Game Rules menus can give you an idea of what the platform is used for.
If the question is more along the lines of why we are making character tools in the first place with free options available, then I’ll cross-post from where I’ve answered a similar question from another thread here.
As I’ve shared in several other posts and in the disclaimer when opening the tools while in Closed Alpha, we know the experience is not good or even close to complete at this stage. We have decided to allow people that want to opt-into it even with that disclaimer to help us test at a very early stage (and that testing has been valuable to us). We also have decided to keep content that would be locked once the character tools go public locked during the alpha, because taking things away from fans is not something we have ever seen be a good experience.
The pricing we have in place is based on the standard for all official tools licensed by Paizo. All game mechanics are available for free through the Game Compendium on Pathfinder NEXUS, where reading the content and using character options in the tools requires a purchase to unlock past what is freely-available in the Pathfinder Primer. I can’t speak to the way any unofficial tools work out there.
I completely disagree that what we are building will be a lesser version of anything out there - I believe it will be the best character experience available once we’re done. That’s completely fine if you don’t believe that now (how could you, it’s not close to complete?) or even if you don’t believe that once we’re done…it’s still the commitment and drive for our team internally.
As for the work, it’s worthwhile to us not only because we believe it will be the best overall character experience as I mention above, but it’s also important to note that the character builder and digital character sheet is functionality that we are building (using Pathfinder as a pilot) for the platform. We will support dozens of games, with Pathfinder being one of many. If you and your groups want to use another character management option for Pathfinder, you should do what works best for you. All the other games we have on our NEXUS platform might not have as many options.
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Yes, I was indeed referring to the character tools.
And I can also confirm that the reader and compendium are indeed extremely useful. Getting an adventure on Demiplane has proven to be all I need to run it, as all the information needed to run it is linked through the compendium. It does all the cross-referring needed for me.
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I would like to followup on the original question. Will I be able to export my character sheet to PDF? I changed permissions for the character to allow anyone with a link, but that apparently doesn’t work unless they have a nexus account. I understand the desire to control content, but exporting seems to be a reasonable base feature. I used the Character Tools to build my Pathfinder character, and I am very impressed so far. I’m all in, but not everyone in my gaming circle has or is willing to create a Nexus account, so I need to export to PDF to share with the DM/party. I would imagine lots of people play in person, so exporting seems it would be a base feature. I’d prefer not to have to redo what I have built in PathBuilder or some other tool just to share my character.
They’ve said it’s definitely in the works, but it’s not ready yet. I know what you mean though, all of my group have nexus accounts but because there isn’t at export, we’re stuck using pathbuilder until it’s done.
Yes, confirming that it will be possible to export your character sheet to PDF. That is something on our short-term roadmap.
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Any new info on export availability?
This is a priority for us this year. The most recent update from our team is that we’ve begun working on some of the groundwork needed to support this.
When we have more to share, we’ll be sure to broadcast it.
That’s good. The next most important (maybe more?) would be a tie in to some VTT’s (read: Foundry)… just sayin’ lol
There’s a little more ground we need to cover on our end before we can begin working on that kind of integration, but it’s also on our roadmap.