Introduction

This tutorial helps in navigating the zine_maker code, a small software tool derived from pyFPDF library. The code is written in Python, and provides a few scripts for creating covers, colophons, content, and also signatures for preparing a PDF for the printer. The scripts run with python version 3.x.x and we can feed to the scripts inputs and outputs. As an input, we give the path to a text file, which shall create the text and images content of the zine, and as an output we give a the path/filename of our choice. We can also run the scripts with no input nor output, in which case, they take as default parameters the readme text from the text/ folder and produce an output to either of the folders covers, colophons, body, or zines, depending on which script we are running each time.

Get the code

Download the source code

As of 2021-2022, the code is under active development by the author and can be cloned and/or downloaded from https://git.systerserver.net/mara/zine_maker. To download the project, near the top of the gitlab page, click on the download icon next to "Find file". You can choose which type of archived folder you want, and then open it in your filesystem, by right clicking the archived folder, or from the terminal:

tar -xvf zine_maker.tar -C /home/user/destination  
unzip zinme_maker.zip -d /home/user/destination

OR use git clone:

git clone https://maker:glpat-zHtx4dd5xgmdMHRGA-t6@git.systerserver.net/mara/zine_maker.git
cd zine_maker

Requirements

Basic requirements are listed here. Python3 should be installed on the computer https://www.python.org/downloads/

And also the pip command if it didn't get installed with Python https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/installation/

Once these are installed, from within zine_maker folder run:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run the code!

Parameters

The python scripts cover.py, body.py and colophon.py take a text file as input, and a path for the output. If we give no input and not output, the default input comes from the files under the input folder and is saved in the output folder as cover.pdf, body.pdf and colophon.pdf respectively.

Make the zine in 3 steps

1. Generate a cover pdf from the root of the folder run: python cover.py

2. Generate the body (the content) pdf from the root of the folder run: python body.py

3. Generate the colophon (the back cover) pdf from the root of the folder run: python colophon.py

The pdf is saved in the output folder.

To make your own zine modify the text files for the cover, for the body and for the colophon in the input folder.
Or provide your own files with the full pathname: for example run: python body.py <path>/<your-input-file>.txt <path>/<your-output-file>.pdf

Add images in the zine

python doc_pdf.py text/images.txt body/images.pdf

Miscellaneous

Fonts

The source code comes with some fonts under the fonts folder. You can use your fonts of preference by adding them either in the fonts folder and edit the files cover.py, colophon.py and doc_pdf.py to give the new names. Or add your absolute font path directly to the python scripts.

Text

The input texts should be clean from characters added by some text editors or Operating Systems. Use the cat command to check your text is ready as input with: cat --show-nonprinting input.txt

Symbols such as M-oM-;M or ^M (carriage Return / line feed) need to be removed. A cool tool for that is dos2unix, which is available as command line, but needs to be installed: dos2unix filename

Or with the sed command: sed -e "s/\r//g" file > newfile

Extensive info can be find at: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/sed-remove-m-and-line-feeds-under-unix-linux-bsd-appleosx/

Layout

All the font styling happens in the zine_maker function create_pages(). The input text is parsed for specific tags or symbols in the begining of each line and changes to the font color and size happen accordingly. We can add more or edit existing rules, directly in the zine_maker code.

Merge

For merging the cover, body and colophon pdf files, there are many pdf merger tools. One that is command line based and is used in this tutorial is pdfunite http://linux-commands-examples.com/pdfunite

Print

For shuffling the final pdf and prepare it for printing you need the pdfseparate command http://www.linux-commands-examples.com/pdfseparate it is used inside the shuffle_pdf.py file (see details at the end of this README).

Images

For making use of images in the script image magick needs to be installed http://www.imagemagick.org/

Make the cover of the pdf

Same, the default parameters included in the script would create the cover for the zine_maker: python cover.py

OR try-out the other cover samples:

python cover.py text/cover.txt covers/cover.pdf

OR add your cover text file and replace respectively:

python cover.py text/<your-cover>.txt covers/<cover-name>.pdf

Make the colophon of the pdf

Same, the default parameters included in the script would create the colophon for the zine_maker: python colophon.py

OR try-out the other colophon samples:

python colophon.py text/colophon.txt colophons/colophon.pdf

OR add your own colophon text file and replace respectively:

python colophon.py text/<your-colophon>.txt colophons/<output-colophon>.pdf

Make a screen PDF

For the final screen version

from the terminal run:

pdfunite covers/cover.pdf body/body.pdf colophons/colophon.pdf zines/final.pdf

You shall substitute the file paths to your own corresponding /path/filenames

See this readme as the generated screen version zine:

open the file zines/zinemaker.pdf

Make a zine

Prepare signatures for printing

./thumbs/printer_settings.png

Default parameters: as input "zines/zinemaker_screen.pdf" and as output "zinemaker{random_number}.pdf" Run it for your own pdf files as following: python shuffle_pdf.py <input_file>.pdf <output_file>.pdf`

In the printer settings opt-in for the following settings:

• A4 Landscape
• Two pages per side
• Double side - short edge