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AlbumEasy

Introduction

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AlbumEasy - Getting Started

  1. Download the AlbumEasy application.

  2. Install AlbumEasy:
    • Windows:
      1. AlbumEasyV20g.exe - This is the installer for the GUI version of AlbumEasy. Simply execute this in order to install AlbumEasy.
        If you wish to uninstall it at a later date, this may be done from the "Add or Remove Programs" in the Windows Control Panel.
      2. AlbumEasyV20c.zip - Unzip the downloaded file, by double clicking on it in Windows explorer.
        You may want to place the unzipped files into their own directory eg. C:\AlbumEasy
        If you later decide to uninstall AlbumEasy, simply delete the entire directory.
    • Linux:
      1. AlbumEasyV20c.tgz or AlbumEasyV20g.tgz - Open a shell prompt, then execute the command:
          tar -xzvf AlbumEasyV20c.tgz
        or:
          tar -xzvf AlbumEasyV20g.tgz
        in order to extract the files.
        If you later decide to uninstall AlbumEasy, simply delete the extracted files.

  3. Generating your first album:
    • GUI version of AlbumEasy:
      1. If running Windows, double click on the AlbumEasy icon.
        For Linux, type ./AlbumEasy at the command prompt.
      2. Press the "Open" button, to open the file AlbumSample.txt.
      3. Press the "Generate" button to create the file AlbumSample.pdf, which you can now view or print.
    • Command line version of AlbumEasy:
      1. Open up a shell or command prompt.
      2. Change to the directory containing the AlbumEasy files.
      3. For Windows Type: AlbumEasy AlbumSample.txt
      4. For Linux Type: ./AlbumEasy AlbumSample.txt
      5. This will generate the file AlbumSample.pdf, which you can now view or print.
    • NB When printing from Acrobat, please ensure that the "Shrink oversized pages to paper size", and "Expand small pages to paper size" options are not checked in the print dialogue box. Otherwise items on the page may have the wrong size when printed.

  4. Creating your custom album
    • Copy the example file AlbumSample.txt, giving it any name you wish eg. Canada.txt
    • Edit the file with a text editor, or your favourite wordprocessor. If using a wordprocesor, please ensure that you save the file as text only.
      See the commands section lower down on this page for a full list of commands that may be placed in the text file.
    • Use AlbumEasy to process this file and generate the file Canada.pdf

AlbumEasy - Commands

This section lists the commands that can be included in the text file. (All measurements are in mm).

The following commands control the appearance of all pages in the album. These should be placed at the beginning of each album text file:
ALBUM_PAGES_SIZE (width height)
Set the width and height of the album page
eg ALBUM_PAGES_SIZE (215.9 279.4) for US Letter (8.5 x 11) or ALBUM_PAGES_SIZE (210.0 297.0) for A4
ALBUM_PAGES_MARGINS (left right top bottom)
Set the page margins
eg ALBUM_PAGES_MARGINS (25.0 12.0 15.0 15.0). Will leave a wider left margin to allow for punch holes
ALBUM_PAGES_MARGINSE (left right top bottom)
Optional margin command to set different margins for even numbered pages.
ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER (outer inner spacing)
Optional command to draw a double line border around the page, just inside the margins.
eg ALBUM_PAGES_BORDER (0.5 0.1 1.0). Draw the outer border 0.5mm thick, the inner border 0.1mm thick, with a 1mm space between borders.
ALBUM_PAGES_TITLE (Font Fontsize Title)
Place a title on all pages in the album.
eg ALBUM_PAGES_TITLE (TB 16 "Transvaal"). Use Times Roman Bold 16 point to place Transvaal on every page.
ALBUM_PAGES_SPACING (horizontal vertical)
set the horizontal and vertical spacing for elements on a page.
Horizontal spacing controls the distance that text and stamps will be separated from the left and right border.
Vertical spacing controls the space between rows of stamps, or blocks of text. eg ALBUM_PAGES_SPACING (6.0 6.0). Will set the horizontal and vertical spacing to 6 mm.
The following commands describe each individual page:
PAGE_START
Start a new page. There must always be at least one PAGE_START to indicate the first page.
PAGE_TEXT (Font Fontsize Text)
Place a paragraph of text on the page. The paragraph is left justified, and formatted to fit between the margins of the page, separated at each side by the horizontal value specified in ALBUM_PAGES_SPACING.
eg PAGE_TEXT (HN 10 "Descriptive text"). Place the text using a Helvetica Normal 10 point font.
PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE (Font Fontsize Text)
Place text on the page, and centre it.
eg PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE (HB 10 "A heading"). Place the text using a Helvetica Bold 10 point font.
ROW_START_ES (Font Fontsize border)
Start a row of stamps with equal spacing
The stamps are spaced evenly across the page with equal spacing between the stamps as well as the margins.
Font and Fontsize specify the font that will be used for any text under or inside the stamp frame. Border specifies the thickness of the line used to draw the stamp frame.
eg ROW_START_ES (HN 6 0.1). Use 6 point Helvetica Normal font, with a 0.1mm border for the stamp frames.
ROW_START_JS (Font Fontsize border)
Start a row of stamps with justifed spacing
The left edge of the leftmost stamp at the left margin, the right edge of the rightmost stamp at the right margin, with equal spacing between the stamps.
ROW_START_FS (Font Fontsize border space)
Start a row of stamps with fixed spacing
Stamps are placed with fixed spacing between them, with the row centred between the margins. eg ROW_START_FS (HN 6 0.1 6.0). Use a 6 point Helvetica font, with a 0.1mm border for the stamp frames. stamps are spaced 6.0mm apart.
ROW_ALIGN_TOP
Placing a row of stamps with unequal heights will align the top edges.
This command will affect all subsequent rows (ROW_ALIGN_TOP is the default).
ROW_ALIGN_BOTTOM
Placing a row of stamps with unequal heights will align the bottom edges.
This command will affect all subsequent rows.
Click on RowAlign.pdf. for an example of the ROW_ALIGN_TOP and ROW_ALIGN_BOTTOM commands.
STAMP_ADD (width height txt0 txt1 txt2 txtBL txtBC txtBR)
Add a stamp
The stamp frame is drawn using the specified width and height. Each stamp can have up to 6 text items:
txt0, txt1, and txt2 are rows of text to be placed inside the frame. txtBL, txtBC, and txtBR are three text items placed below the frame.
eg STAMP_ADD (50.0 28.0 "1 1/2d" "chestnut" "tete-beche pair" "sg 5a" "" "sacc 4b") will draw a frame 50mm wide, by 28mm high. With three rows of text inside, and two text item underneath. NB All text items must be specified even if not used.
eg STAMP_ADD (50.0 28.0 "" "" "" "" "" "") will draw the frame with no text.
STAMP_ADDX (width height txt0 txt1 txt2 txtBL txtBC txtBR txt1BL txt1BC txt1BR)
Identical to the previous command, but allows for a second row of three text items under the frame. NB All text items must be specified even if not used. eg STAMP_ADDX (50.0 28.0 "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "")
Comments:
In order to document your AlbumEasy text file, you can include comments which are ignored by AlbumEasy. The # character is used to indicate the start of a comment. All text after a # until the end of a line will be ignored.

Font specifiers:
TN -Times Roman Normal
TB -Times Roman Bold
TI -Times Roman Italic
TS -Times Roman Bold-Italic
HN -Helvetica Normal
HB -Helvetica Bold
HI -Helvetica Italic
HS -Helvetica Bold-Italic

Text:
For convenience, text placed using the PAGE_TEXT and PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE may be continued over multiple lines. e.g:

PAGE_TEXT (HN 10 "This is all "\
"one "\
"line of text")

Note the use of the \ character to indicate line continuation.
The following characters have special meaning within a text string:
\n Start a new line
\" Insert a " character
\\ Insert a \ character

eg. PAGE_TEXT_CENTRE (HS 12 "First line of text\nSecond Line.");
will place two lines of text centred on the page.