cdlabelgen - CD/DVD jewel case inserts and envelopes creator. Generates frontcards and traycards for CD cases, single-cd envelopes, DVD case inserts.
cdlabelgen [ -c <category> -s <subcategory> -i <item1%item2%etc> -f <itemsfile> -v <num_items_cover> -e <cover_epsfile> -S <cover_eps_scaleratio>[,<image_x_offset>,<image_y_offset_inches>] -E <tray_epsfile> -T <tray_eps_scaleratio>[,<image_x_offset>,<image_y_offset_inches>] -d <date> -D -o <outputfile> -t <template> -b -C -w -h -m -M -O -p -y <page_offset_inches> -l <line_width_points>] --create-dvd-inside --create-dvd-outside --rotate-endcaps --plaque-color <r,g,b> --category-color <r,g,b> --subcategory-color <r,g,b> --text-color <r,g,b> -n <volume/number in set>
cdlabelgen's purpose in life is twofold:
cdlabelgen was designed to simplify the process of generating labels for CD's. It originated as a program to allow auto generation of frontcards and traycards for CD's burned via an automated mechanism (specifically for archiving data), but has now become popular for labelling CD compilations of mp3's, and copies of CDs. Note that cdlabelgen does not actually print anything--it just spits out postscript, which you can then do with as you please.
The latest version of cdlabelgen as well as this document can be found at http://www.aczoom.com/tools/cdinsert/. The software package includes CGI scripts that can be used to serve cdlabelgen over the internet. An older version may be available at: http://www.red-bean.com/~bwf/software/cdlabelgen/.
cdlabelgen comes with several eps images for you to use on your labels. These images can be found in /usr/local/lib/cdlabelgen or /usr/share/cdlabelgen or /opt/lib/cdlabelgen/ or /usr/local/share/cdlabelgen, depending on your installation. Included are a Recycling icon, an mp3 icon, the Compact Disc icon (with and without 'Digital' on it), Tux the penguin, and the new Debian 'swirl' logo. Two color background images called Music Notes are also available.
CDs: cdlabelgen prints a 'tongue' as part of the traycard. This folds around and is viewable from the front in jewel boxes that are entirely clear (CD holder piece is not opaque). If you do not have a clear CD holder in your jewel box, you may find it easier to just cut the 'tongue' off--it's a bit easier to fold without it.
Paper Sizes: Normal CD cases, Slim CD cases, DVD inside inserts can be printed on a letter or A4 sized page. CD/DVD Envelopes and DVD outside inserts will not fit on a letter sized paper, a larger paper size will be needed to make it fit.
cdlabelgen requires Perl Version 5.003 or greater. Ghostscript is not required, but is recommended so that you can test out your labels without wasting paper.
-P option is used.
You can insert blank lines by
inserting 2 percent signs in a row into the items list.
Special commands can be embedded in the file, all of these commands should be present starting at the first column of the line. The codes are used to change the font for an item, the code itself is not printed in the output.
{#BI} - make the item bold and italic
{#I} - make the item italic
{#B} - make the item bold
{#M} - make the item mono-spaced (Courier font)
{#MB} - make the item monospaced and bold (Courier-Bold font)
Example:
{#MB} Text 1 Item
would print the line " Text 1 Item" in a monospaced bold font.
If the scale value passed is 0 (or 0.0), then the logo is used as a background image - it will be scaled as required to fit the entire cover.
The -S option also takes optional translate arguments. Normally images are printed on the cover and the tray so that the bottom-right of the image is anchored to the bottom-right of the cover or tray. To move the images away from the bottom and right borders, use this option. For example, to leave two inches of gap between the image and the bottom border, and 0.5 inches from the left border, and use 1.0 scaleratio, use this: -S 1.0,-2,0.5
This offset only applies when the image is being used as a logo - i.e., image is not being used as background to fill the entire cover or tray.
If the scale value passed is the word fill1, then the image is used as a background - it is scaled so that it completely fills the interior tray card region. The value 0 (or 0.0) works same as the fill1 argument.
If the value passed is the word fill2, then the image is used as a background to fill more than just the tray. For normal CD cases, the image is scaled so that it completely fills both the tray card region, and the two endcaps (but not the extreme right-hand 'tongue-cap') for normal cd cases. For Slim CD cases or DVD Inside/Outside covers, the tray image will fill both the tray and cover regions (including any spines).
The -T option also takes optional translate arguments. Normally images are printed on the cover and the tray so that the bottom-right of the image is anchored to the bottom-right of the cover or tray. To move the images away from the bottom and right borders, use this option. For example, to leave two inches of gap between the image and the bottom border, and 0.5 inches from the left border, and use 1.0 scaleratio, use this: -T 1.0,-2,0.5
This offset only applies when the image is being used as a logo - i.e., image is not being used as background to fill the entire cover or tray.
If there is a problem with -w, the best option right now is to split
lines in the input itself, and to omit the -w option.
Slim case option can be used with outside dvd inserts ( --create-dvd-outside ) also - in which case the outside insert is created for half-height DVD case.
Slim case option ( --slim-case ) can be used with outside dvd inserts also - in which case the outside insert is created for half-height DVD case.
Use this option to use a fixed width font for all items. If the item is too large to fit in a column, the text will be clipped instead.
-D, it will be in
place of the date; otherwise, it is appended to the date as `` -
<number-in-set>''
cdlabelgen -c "My Filesystem"
-s "/usr/local/foo"
-e postscript/recycle.eps > foo.ps
cdlabelgen -c "title of cd"
-s "subtitle"
-i "Item 1%and Item 2%a third item here perhaps"
-e postscript/recycle.eps > bar.ps
cdlabelgen -c "Fitz"
-s "home directory"
-o qux.ps
cdlabelgen -c "Backups"
-s "home directory"
-n "4 of 5"
cdlabelgen uses the Helvetica family of fonts for various text items, using the default encoding of ISO-Latin1.
To use other encodings, the ``ogonkify'' program can be used; this is a package available at http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/ogonkify/ The output from cdlabelgen can be piped into ogonkify, example for Latin2 encoding:
cdlabelgen <args> | ogonkify -H -eL2 > <outputfilename>
See the man page for ogonkify for other possible values for the encoding.
Hint: if you always work with a particular encoding, you can just run ogonkify on template.ps - and use the output as the new template.ps.
ogonkify -H -eL2 template.ps > template-enc.ps
This way ogonkify has to be run only once, cdlabelgen output will contain the correctly encoded fonts from the modified template.ps. Use the -t cdlabelgen option to specify the new template-enc.ps file, or save the old template.ps and renmae template-enc.ps to template.ps.
When using tools such as Adobe Acrobat to print the .ps or a .pdf file, make sure that ``Fit To Paper'' option is unchecked. Also uncheck any option that will perform scaling up or down of the cdlabelgen output file.
Failure to do so will result in incorrect size printouts.
Paper Sizes: Normal CD cases, Slim CD cases, DVD inside inserts can be printed on a letter or A4 sized page. CD/DVD Envelopes and DVD outside inserts will not fit on a letter sized paper, a larger paper size will be needed to make it fit.
When using different sized paper, experimentation with the -y (also: --page-offset) <page_offset_inches> option may be required to place the image in the printable region of the paper.
Currently maintained by Avinash Chopde <avinash@aczoom.com>
Original author: B. W. Fitzpatrick <fitz@red-bean.com>
- Karl Fogel, for general encouragement and that free software vibe
- Adam Di Carlo, for bug testing, help and making the .deb
- Greg Gallagher, for bug testing, coding, and tons of suggestions
- Goran Larsson, for feedback and date fixes
- Jens Claussen, for the patch to allow arbitrary ISO-Latin1 characters
- Bernard Quatermass, for contributing several excellent new features
- Sebastian Wenzler <sick@home.and.drunk.at> for reports, tests, RPM ['01]
- Peter Bieringer <pb@bieringer.de> for RPM .spec file ['02]
- Ronald Rael Harvest <number6@cox.net> for original envelope template ['02]
- Alessandro Dotti Contra <alessandro.dotti@libero.it> for color support,
man page and other improvements ['02]
Mathias Herberts
- Mathias Herberts <Mathias.Herberts@iroise.net>, for slim cdcase foldout
- Stephan Grund <Stephan.Grund@isst.fraunhofer.de>, for monospaced
font and for rotated-end-caps text support
- Dominique Dumont <domi.dumont@free.fr>, for half-height DVD case support
(patch forwarded by Juan Manuel Garcia Molina <juanma@debian.org>)
Perhaps one of the most important features that I wanted in a CD labelling program was the ability to print Title/Subtitle, and date information on the endcaps of the CD jewel box to allow me to keep archive disks in a standard CD rack and find a particular one without yanking them all out and shuffling through them like a deck of cards.
cdlabelgen was inspired by the need for not only a simple cd labelling program (there are many available), but by the need for a free labelling program which could be integrated easily with scheduled CD archiving routines. I did find a program called cdlabel http://londo.ncl.ac.uk/~npac/cdlabel/, but that one is designed to work with CDDB.
I searched the net for a suitable program, but found none, so taking cues from programs that I found that perform similar tasks (like tape labellers and DAT labellers), I embarked on this venture. Notable inspiration came from the incredible audio-tape.ps by Jamie Zawinski (which is indeed, as Jamie notes, completely out of control). Other ideas were drawn from casslabel.c, and cdlabel.cc (noted above).
Please report bugs and submit any patches to the current author's email address.
** Ability to change the text style on a given line:
{#B}Track# {#P}Title {#I} Text...
[Workaround available: just use multi columns input, use blank
lines to spread out input items into columns]
** Ability to select or specify fonts for the text/items