Can anyone share any solutions for producing nicely typeset custom classes in Linux?
Can anyone share any solutions for producing nicely typeset custom classes in Linux?
Can anyone share any solutions for producing nicely typeset custom classes in Linux?
I use LaTeX for most of my layout stuff, but there’s also Scribus if you like GUI-based design.
(and no, I don’t have a solution because I haven’t done it, but depending what you’re looking for it might not be too difficult)
I don’t suppose you have produced a DW class in either?
sorry. I’d offer to put one together, but honestly I’m not quite competent to do so right now, this head cold is kicking my ass.
Yep. LaTeX is the typesetting language of choice on linux. It is difficult to learn, but produces beautiful pdfs. I don’t know if there are good templates out there. LyX is a graphical LaTeX editor for more casual users.
Depends on what you want and how much work you’re willing to put into it.
For quick and dirty, use whichever of OpenOffice or LibreOffice your system includes. The Word templates will probably work pretty well, with never OO/LO releases doing better.
Scribus is the big GUI desktop publishing package; I’m not real impressed with it. It might work better for classes, but the table support is embarrassingly bad, which is a bit of a dealbreaker for a lot of RPG layout work.
If you’re willing to put the effort into developing the template, LaTeX will generate beautiful output and be pretty clean for writing. Decidedly nerdy, and creating that template is Serious Work. If you go this route, consider XeTeX, which supports TrueType and OpenType fonts and supports a lot of advanced font features.
If you want to do graphical layout and want a lot of control, Inkscape. This is a drawing program, not a layout program, so it can be a lot of work. A truly nerdy person might create an SVG template and fill it in programatically (http://blog.natbudin.com/2008/08/08/a-nifty-way-to-make-character-sheets/ )
Dammit, now I want to spend a day or so creating a LaTeX template. Sadly, I lack the time. :-/
I felt much the same, Alan De Smet , except in my case it’s competence…
Alan De Smet , actually, that SVG option might just be workable with a little more elbow grease. I ran the official character sheets PDF through Inkscape and got a semi-decent SVG out!
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3rGIWXLYuP6TmRlZEo4NElRT2M/edit?usp=sharing
I think it looks like crap on my Ubuntu 13.04 system because I lack MinionPro, the Adobe TTF used in the InDesign files. Hm.
I use inkscape. For templates just import the character sheet pdfs
Wynand Louw , I don’t think that Inkscape is going to cut it for me. It definitely seems like a path to recreating the look of the official sheets, but OpenOffice is going to be less fiddly.
have you got, or can you direct me to, a sample of what you want it to look like? I’ve got some, but would have to dig them out… but as I recall they’re not that complex.
and maybe I can take a look at it tomorrow.
http://www.dungeon-world.com/category/bonus/character-sheets/
hrm. somewhat more funky than I was thinking of. Outside my competence today.
I used the ODT Dungeon World Playbook Template located here:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?700954-Dungeon-World-MS-Word-and-Open-Office-Playbook-Templates
in LibreOffice under Ubuntu 13.04 and it worked pretty fine. It definitely was not a cut & paste job, but it does not require aligning graphics & text boxes by hand so I call that a win. I had to properly delete the headers and footers of the template spell list to delete those pages to export a nice 2 page PDF, and Document Viewer has some display issue with the exported PDF which isn’t present in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Other than that, I am happy with the look!
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3rGIWXLYuP6OWIzR0hjV1pOTWM/edit?usp=sharing