Skip to main content

LaTeX Greeting Cards - New and Improved

... Disaster has struck and the post I had spent a whole day on has vanished because of some incompatibility between Blogger and Microsoft SkyDrive embedding. I will try to recap the contents of that post briefly anyways.

The original gcard style sheet is intended for making a small greeting card that gets folded twice, as shown in my previous post. I would like to modify the style sheet to produce a card that gets folded only once. It will have some content on the outside as well as inside. In addition, I want to add features like background image and other figures to make the cards more appealing.

Going from a double fold to a single fold

That requires that you make the following changes in the file gcard.sty.

1) Double the panel height.
%\setlength{\panelheight}{(\paperheight-2\gctopmargin-2\gcbottommargin)/2}
\setlength{\panelheight}{(\paperheight-2\gctopmargin-2\gcbottommargin)}
2) Push the inside pages to their respective location next page.
%\begin{textblock*}{\panelwidth}(0pt,\TPVertModule)
\begin{textblock*}{\panelwidth}(0pt,0pt)
.
.
.
%\begin{textblock*}{\panelwidth}(\TPHorizModule,\TPVertModule)
\begin{textblock*}{\panelwidth}(\TPHorizModule,0pt)
To the TeX source, you would need to insert the following like right between the 'backcover' and 'insideleft' sections.
\null\newpage


Inserting a Background

In the TeX source file, include this code before the \begin{document}.
\usepackage{eso-pic}
\newcommand\BG{
\put(0,0){
\parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
\vfill
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\paperwidth,height=\paperheight,keepaspectratio,angle=180]{BG.jpg}
\vfill
}}}

\usepackage{eso-pic}
\newcommand\BG1{
\put(0,0){
\parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
\vfill
\centering
\includegraphics[width=\paperwidth,height=\paperheight,keepaspectratio,angle=0]{BG.jpg}
\vfill
}}}
Right after \begin{document}, add this line
\AddToShipoutPicture{\BG}
Add this line right between the 'backcover' and 'insideleft' sections.
\AddToShipoutPicture{\BG1}



Inserting Images
Images can be inserted as follows.
\includegraphics[width=5.00in,keepaspectratio,angle=0]{Image.jpg}


It might be time for me to share a card I have created using the above-mentioned principles.

PDF:: TEX:: STY::


Enjoy

Comments

Anonymous said…
Cool. I'm glad to see somebody using gcard. (You're the second I know about!)

Agreed, on the "I don't really like
the commercial ones."

Enjoy the ware...
Anonymous said…
Thanks for preparing gcard, George.
I have enjoyed using it to make all sorts of cards. I have made so many thank you notes, happy b-day cards, mother's and father's day cards ...etc to give to friends and family.
Berhin
Wendy said…
Hi, I was hoping to download your latex greeting card example and use it to make my own wedding invite. However, the link is not working for me. Please help!

thanks!
Wendy
Erdem said…
Hi,
both gcard and this website enabled me to prepare a nice wedding card.
To note, the addition of rotating package enables some further flexibility.
I used the first foo box example from the rotating package manual:
Thank you :)

---------------
\documentclass[12 pt,landscape]{article}
\usepackage{palatino}
\usepackage[dvips]{geometry}
\usepackage[showboxes]{gcard}
\usepackage{rotating}

\begin{document}

\newsavebox{\foo}
\savebox{\foo}{\parbox{1in}{\centering
Your message}}%

\newsavebox{\front}
\savebox{\front}{\parbox{1in}{\centering
Your front box message}}%


\begin{frontcover}
\huge
\centering
\begin{turn}{90}\usebox{\front}\end{turn}

\end{frontcover}


\begin{insideright}
\huge
\centering

\begin{turn}{90}\usebox{\foo}\end{turn}

\end{insideright}

\begin{insideleft}
\null\newpage
\end{insideleft}

\end{document}

Popular posts from this blog

LaTeX Greeting Cards

No, no, not that kind of latex. You are pretty sick for thinking that. I am talking about LaTeX, the typesetting program. Back to greeting cards. Anybody else hate greeting cards? The type that you buy at the store, sign and deliver even though the message is very impersonal and superficial? Yeah, those kind. I hate them very much. Not only do I hate spending time trying to find something that's mildly personal, but I hate paying for them too. $3-5 on that garbage is a travesty. Jerry Seinfeld captures my feelings towards Hallmark cards perfectly in this clip: or this one http://www.youtube.com/v/7tq-RE_6yVo This problem has become significant enough for me to start working on solutions. I am going to make my own cards using LaTeX. So, I googled "LaTeX greeting cards" and came across the the gcards package. It requires that you also install the textpos and graphicx packages, if you don't have them installed already. I am working with a Linux system

Economic Aid to Developing Countries - The Stats

World economics has been an interest of mine for a long time and I will start blogging about it here. Questions like how and if the US can continue its dominance and prosperity, what role China and India will play in the world and what the future holds for the likes of Ethiopia and Eritrea fascinate and worry me quite a bit. To the best of my non-economist abilities, I will address these questions in the future. My first entry derives some general conclusions from statistics on economic aid from developed countries to developing and third-world countries that I found on BBC . It is no surprise the US leads in this category and a better measure of generosity would be one where the amount of aid is given as a percentage of the country's GDP or revenues. Considering this aid is coming from governments as opposed to NGO's, it would be more informative to calculate this aid as a percentage of a government's revenue. Unfortunately, what BBC reports is the amount of aid as a

Victim of Asylum Roulette

Not too many stories resonate with me as much as the plight of legitimate asylum seekers whose desperate plea to find refuge in the US is ultimately decided by the questionable preference, judgment and mood of a single asylum officer (with some oversight from a regional asylum director) on one fateful day. That decision, according to numerous credible and through studies, depends largely on the location of the regional asylum center, the legal representation of the the applicant, the gender of the asylum officer just as much as the merit of the asylum case, while in fact the legitimacy of the asylum case should be the only relevant factor. This phenomenon has become so real that researchers at the Georgetown University law school have dubbed it the Refugee Roulette . Why am I so sensitive about this subject? My most devastating tragedy of late has been the denial of my legitimate and honest application for political asylum at the Chicago Asylum Office. When I applied believing the