Gregory Novak wrote: >A note while people are on the subject: I recently wanted to print >address labels, which involves placing ~80 of the same thing on a >sheet. > >I originally used TeX for this, since it's trivially easy to write a >script that reproduces the address 80 times. Getting the labels >exactly placed on the page eventually made this approach too >frustrating. I'm sure a TeX expert could get it to work, but not me. > >I then did it in Scribus by making an EPS file with the address and >making ~80 pictures pointing to the same EPS file. This worked fine >in this case, but I can't help thinking that some power is lost by not >having a full fledged scripting mechanism available. > >For example, I have a bunch of digital photos and it'd be nice to use >Scribus to lay it out a photo album for them. However, I don't know >how to effectivley script together the text, photos, etc. I do, >however, know how to do this for TeX, so that's what I'm using now. > > > Like many things in Linux, this has already been done. I made a script to do just this, actually two scripts, one for US Letter, one for A4 paper.
How they work is this: When you fire up the script, you get a requester to indicate a directory and also which image format types to include. The script then makes pages from your images -- one version simply makes 6 pictures on a page, the other puts only four in a staggered format, so that you have room for comment text frames beside images as needed/desired. It also automatically labels the page as to the directory and each image. As far as I know, there is no upper limit to the number of images in a directory, it will just crank along until it's done. Because of the way it works, you need to designate and load a directory with everything you want in your album. I need to find these scripts, so I can attach them to a subsequent email. Now, here is a peculiarity I am just noticing: my current 1.3.2cvs from 24 November does not have a menu selection for Scripts (?!). I /think/ I have python on this computer (at the office), but maybe not. Greg
