Support scripts
Scripts:
make-images.sh
Generate LaTeX block of pages from a directory tree.
This was initially intended as a means to convert the exported directory tree from an image viewer where image/text sequencing was done, but it can also be used standalone.
Goals:
- Decouple layout, sequencing, images, processing and different texts to enable different people to work on them independently and in parallel,
- Automate the build process.
A typical project tree:
book/
├── templates/ . . . . . . . . . . . . Global templates.
│ ├── imagepage.tex . . . . . . . . . Single page image template,
│ ├── textpage.tex . . . . . . . . . Single page text template,
│ │ These are used to build spreads
│ │ when no explicit template matches.
│ ├── blank-image.tex
│ ├── image-blank.tex
│ ├── image-image.tex
│ ├── fullbleed.tex
│ └── ...
├── pages/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main block layout.
│ ├── 00/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A basic spread.
│ │ ├── tweaks.tex The spread template is built
│ │ └── 0-DSC02432.jpg automatically with tweaks.tex
│ │ prepended.
│ ├── 01/
│ │ ├── 0-DSC02439.jpg
│ │ └── 1-intro.txt
│ ├── 02/
│ │ ├── fullbleed.tpl . . . . . . . Explicitly use a global template.
│ │ └── 1-DSC02511.jpg
│ ├── 03/
│ │ ├── 0-DSC02509-0.jpg
│ │ └── 1-DSC02506-0.jpg
│ └── ...
├── captions/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . Image captions.
│ ├── DSC02432.txt
│ ├── DSC02439.txt
│ ├── DSC02511.txt
│ └── ...
├── setup.tex . . . . . . . . . . . . . Book block setup.
│ This is included by all top level
│ .tex files like block.tex,
│ cover.tex, ...etc.
├── block.tex . . . . . . . . . . . . . Block skeletal layout.
│ This usually includes the titles,
│ technical pages and sources the
│ ./block-pages.tex.
├── block-pages.tex . . . . . . . . . . The generated block content.
├── cover.tex . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover layout.
├── jacket.tex . . . . . . . . . . . . Dust jacket layout.
└── ...
Generate the block:
$ make-images.sh ./pages > block-pages.tex
Note that make-images.sh does not force a specific layout outside of
the pages directory, all paths are configurable. The way the root
files are structured in this example is just one way to organize a
book's source code with minimal code duplication.
For runtime help see:
$ make-images.sh --help
The process
XXX spreads vs. pages
The system is designed to minimize the effort in laying out pages, so
when designing a book the focus should be on global templates and on
helping make-images.sh build them rather than trying to layout each
spread individually.
Here there are several ways to arrive at a book layout starting from the concept, through the edit, sequencing, structuring and the graphic design, we here will focus on the stage of the process where a body of work is starting to look like a book.
When starting work on a book layout it is good to at least have a basic understanding of it's:
- book structure and how it may change,
- core templates,
- exceptions from the above.
In most cases all of the above will change, and the main goal of this stage is to make this change as simple as possible, the less effort is needed to prove the need for change the simpler and more effortless this change will be -- it's all about providing the freedom to make changes instead of locking oneself into the work/time already invested.
The first question is what is the structure of the book we are making? Will it have chapters? How many? Text, how much, how should it be structured? How are we going to deal with the title? How are we going to present the images, full bleed, no bleeds, small, big, one per page or multiple images, ...etc.? At this stage this is about the presentation the flow of the work and not about the actual design. How many typical spreads (i.e. spread templates) should it have? A good number should be small-ish, for example 3-4 spread templates is a good number, if you count 10+ then you might be overcomplicating tings, but note, there are no rules, a book where each spread is individually and manually layed out may work as well as a book with just a single template spread, but in general for a photo book the focus is on the project and the layout should work with it without overwhelming it.
Have answers, good, now it's time to build those mock layouts and make them into basic templates.
There are two ways to approach this:
- Page templates
These are typical pages that makeup a spread template, usually an image page (imagepage.tex) and a text page (textpage.tex),make-images.shcan combine them to build spreads automatically. - Spread templates These typeset a spread and can be either automatically inferred from the structure or manually selected.
Note that photobook provides a set of ready high level templates
specifically designed for this approach.
Automatic template inference
Manual template selection
Template tweaking
Individual spread layouts
Templates
templates/
├── <template-name>.tex
└── ...
Layout
pages/
├── <spread>/
│ ├── tweaks.tex
│ ├── layout.tex
│ ├── <template-name>.tpl
│ ├── 00-<image-name>.<ext>
│ ├── 01-<text>.txt
│ └── ...
└── ...
Image captions
In general image captions are decoupled from the main layout to enable writers and editors to work on them externally.
captions/
├── <image-name>.txt
└── ...
The captions folder name/location is controlled by the $CAPTION_DIR
environment variable.
Inline captions are also supported:
pages/
├── <spread>/
│ ├── ...
│ ├── 00-<image-name>.<ext>
│ ├── 00-<image-name>.txt . . . . . . Local image caption
│ └── ...
└── ...
An inline caption must have the same filename as the corresponding image but with a .txt extension.
Environment variables
cls2tex.sh
Extract the documentation from photobook.cls which is used to build the photobook.pdf reference manual.