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Inkscape ... No Multipage support

9 replies [Last post]
Mon, 08/16/2010 - 09:41
larienna
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I just hit a wall this morning. Now that my game was finished, I wanted to start learning inkscape to escape from Corel draw.

So I bought a book about inkscape, start to read it and it is very interesting. Then I tried making some prototype to practice myself to use it and clarify some elements while reading the books.

I decided to make a card set for a somewhat Battlemaster card variant that I am going to use in one of my new game.

So I do the usual, draw 9 cards on a sheet, place the information I need and then I said, OK, it's time to clone the model on every other page then add the content of the cards.

So I was looking through the menu to know how I could add a page and did not find anything. Checked in my book with no results. Looked on the net and got my big surprise:

Inkscape does not support multiple pages ...
(lightning storm sound in the background)

For me, it's so basic that it was impossible for a software with sophisticated and impressive features to not support multiple pages. I would have done multi-page right from the start.

Some people suggested Scribus. But the problem with us, game designer, is that our work fall in between documents and pictures. It's not a text accompanied with pictures (except for the rules) and it is not a single drawing. We need multiple drawing arranged differently across multiple pages.

So my question is, for those who use inkscape, how do you work around this problem?

Some people suggested using 1 layer for each page but I use multiple layers to separate my work so it would be too confusing to separate pages this way.

Else I though of saving each sheet of card in a different file.

I know there is nandeck for cards. I want to limit the number of software I use.

Apparently, they expect to implement this feature in version 0.49, but i don't know in which year that version will be released.

Any other suggestion?

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Mon, 08/16/2010 - 12:21
#1
Yekrats
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I use OpenOffice.org Draw + Inkscape

I think you're on the right track. If you want to be totally "freebie" then use Inkscape for the individual elements of a card, and use the free program OpenOffice.org (particularly the "Draw" part) to create the cards. It does multiple pages quite well. Then for each of the graphic elements, do them in Inkscape, export to PNG, then import the graphics into Draw. Draw will export to PDF, and now you have something that you can distribute.

That's the way I've done it anyway. Good luck!

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Mon, 08/16/2010 - 15:23
#2
Cattlemark
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Separate Files

Definitely do separate files for each page. Inkscape has around a 10-15% crash rate when I'm working with it, and a lot of these crashes are while working with the layers. I love the program, but it has its issues, and just to be safe I'd recommend separate files.

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Mon, 08/16/2010 - 16:21
#3
larienna
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Quote:use the free program

Quote:
use the free program OpenOffice.org (particularly the "Draw" part) to create the cards.

I want to reduce the amount of exportation and software used. I also want to reduce file size. So if I export as PNG, everything gets coverted to raster which now takes much more space.

I'll probably try multiple files, it will at least save me the copy paste time between each page.

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Tue, 08/17/2010 - 01:14
#4
pelle
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card sheet extension

I would recommend my Inkscape extension for making cards:

http://lysator.liu.se/~perni/iboardgameexts

(There is a long thread about it in the bgg diy forums, but bgg is down at the moment so I can't find it.)

That way you only draw the layout of one card (or one of each spcific type of card), plus other parts of graphics to combine into cards, and then type into a spreadsheet document what parts to combine into each card (and text to put on the card and other things). The result will be one layer per page.

One user of my extensions sent me a small shell script that would extract the layers from a Inkscape SVG and generate a multiple page PDF automatically. I haven't tested it yet. I'll upload it to that thread on bgg sometime. Currently what I have done is use a similar script to extract each layer to a PNG instead, but PDF is probably better for many uses.

Other than that I agree with previous posters that openoffice.org or scribus would be obvious choices to combine sheets into multiple-page documents.

BTW multi-page support is on the Inkscape roadmap, but I don't remember how far into the future it is planned for.

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Tue, 08/17/2010 - 06:29
#5
larienna
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Quote:BTW multi-page support

Quote:
BTW multi-page support is on the Inkscape roadmap, but I don't remember how far into the future it is planned for.

Apparently it's 0.49. But that does not specify how much time it would take. In could be in 2 weeks or 2 years. Apparently, they are waiting for the SVG specifications to support it.

Quote:
I would recommend my Inkscape extension for making cards

So you are the one who made the board game extension. Very nice so far. I tried generating an hex map on the fly last time. One of the problem I had was with the measurements of the hex. I wanted to use poker chips that measures 1.25", but the measurements in inkscape are from corner to corner rather than from side to side. So I could not know the required measurement to make sure my poker chips would fit in.

I remember that your extension could do card, I did not take a detailed look at it. Maybe eventually, I will. For now, I'll just do it manual to get familliar with the software.

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Tue, 08/17/2010 - 08:53
#6
Louard
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Funny thing is.

Multi-page support is actually a feature I've never encountered in graphics software. ^_^ I didn't know Corel Draw had such a feature. It's pretty much standard to save individual pages as separate documents when working with graphics.

There's a feature in Adobe products to create 'Smart Layers'. A smart layer is a layer that's actually a reference to (usually) another document. I don't know if InkScape has such a relatively advanced feature, but it would allow you to save a document of common elements like card borders and stuff that could be imported into your different pages as a smart layer. And since a smart layer is a reference, if you change the referenced document it will change the smart layer wherever it's used.

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Tue, 08/17/2010 - 09:38
#7
larienna
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Quote:There's a feature in

Quote:
There's a feature in Adobe products to create 'Smart Layers'.

You mean that illustrator does not support multipages?

They probably want to force you to use InDesign.

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Sun, 08/22/2010 - 09:07
#8
fecundity
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larienna wrote: You mean that

larienna wrote:

You mean that illustrator does not support multipages?

Illustrator does allow multiple art boards, which export as multiple pages in PDF.

That said, I edit game cards as one card per art board. For printing multiple cards to the page, I use another program to format the cards together. I use LaTeX with the PDFpages package, but the NanDeck or the inkScape boardgame expansions would also work.

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Mon, 08/23/2010 - 16:00
#9
pelle
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inkscape extension

larienna wrote:

So you are the one who made the board game extension. Very nice so far.

Thanks!

Quote:
I tried generating an hex map on the fly last time. One of the problem I had was with the measurements of the hex. I wanted to use poker chips that measures 1.25", but the measurements in inkscape are from corner to corner rather than from side to side. So I could not know the required measurement to make sure my poker chips would fit in.

Hmm. I mostly think of square counters. But surely the geometry involved in calculating the proper size, or the time required to do it with trial-and-error, are not too prohibitive? I think the dialog would be a bit messy if there were any more options (maybe I could add that to the online version sometime though.

Quote:
I remember that your extension could do card, I did not take a detailed look at it. Maybe eventually, I will. For now, I'll just do it manual to get familliar with the software.

Sounds like a good plan anyway, to get used to all the shortcuts and editing of various objects and all that.

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