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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
Labels:

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...
October 17, 2008 at 9:17 PM
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
October 18, 2008 at 4:44 PM
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
December 23, 2013 at 7:18 AM
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}
April 9, 2015 at 5:10 AM
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