On Fri, 14 Oct 2011 05:23:11 -0700 Tuukka Hastrup <tuukka@...2908...> wrote:
Hi all,
We at FLOSS Manuals would like to use Inkscape to automatically create PDF images for use as book covers by manipulating a template SVG file. The question is if Inkscape has the needed features and if we know how to use them.
Here's an example of what a final book cover would ideally look like: http://tuukka.iki.fi/tmp/example-cover.png
The ideal work flow would include an artist downloading an initial template made by a programmer who understands how Inkscape handles layers, flowed text etc. in the SVG level. The artist could modify the template in Inkscape and add it to a template collection. When a book is published, the user would choose a template from the collection and a script would fill in the book name, author, book logo and convert the SVG to PDF. In addition, the script would need to modify the width of the spine (the middle part in the example image) based on the number of pages in the book.
Has anyone done anything like this before? Would it be feasible? One specific question would be if it's possible to somehow scale the font size of the book name to meet the specified page width.
I had an initial discussion on the #inkscape IRC channel and got the following link as an example of simple search-and-replace: http://wiki.colivre.net/Aurium/InkscapeGenerator
One issue would seem to be the inclusion of nested SVG images within the SVG document, but this could be worked around by including images as PNGs exported with appropriate DPI: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.graphics.inkscape.user/14208
Could someone on this list perhaps help us by creating a simple template which a search-and-replace process could then customise by substituting the book info texts, image filenames and the spine width?
Regards, Tuukka
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Are you aware of the Inkscape feature that templates a perfect bound book cover based on fill in the blanks for dimensions, page count, ppi and cover thickness? It is buried in the Extensions->Render menu, about 3/4 of the way down. It doesn't answer your need directly but it could be worked into the solution.