{"id":53,"date":"2007-10-22T18:54:29","date_gmt":"2007-10-23T01:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mfooz.com\/bblog\/?p=53"},"modified":"2008-03-02T14:35:01","modified_gmt":"2008-03-02T21:35:01","slug":"card-conversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mfooz.com\/bblog\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"card conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Goal: convert TPB PDFs to baseball-card size (2.5×3.5) with a layout compatible with batch cutting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 1973 PDF cards are 2.75×4. Horizontal margins are 0.25, but vertical margins are only 0.125. <\/p>\n

Margins on Scott’s 1977 set are equal! 0.25, I think. Also, I looked at a set of his as-shipped TPB cards. They are a little bigger than the PDFs, and are cut to 2.75 x 4.25, which is letter in eight pieces. They’re not<\/em> cut to exactly the same size. I wonder why the PDFs aren’t laid out like the print job. Found out that the cards are laid out in Excel. (!)<\/p>\n

Might be interesting to format them like print jobs (2.75 x 4.25) instead of 2.5 x 3.5.
\n<\/i> <\/p>\n

Installed DarwinPorts<\/a> and used it to install netpbm, Image Magick, and Xpdf.<\/p>\n

netpbm documentation: main page<\/a> and directory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Xpdf is interesting. pdftotext will extract text, though it would take some complex parsing to grok it. (pdftotext -f 20 -l 20 -upw lenny -layout 1973_Hitters.pdf<\/tt>)<\/p>\n

\r\nBrooks Robinson                       Baltimore 1973   \r\nBats: Rsp                    TPB 2      Salary 2378    \r\n.264 vs L                    .254 vs R       POS\/R\/E   \r\n   0 - 10 Crazy Play!           0 - 10      3B\/AV\/17   \r\n  11 - 70        Error?        11 - 70                 \r\n  71 - 80      ss LO 2b        71 - 80                 \r\n  81 - 96 Park Effects         81 - 96                 \r\n  97 - 136 gcf 1B gcf          97 - 141                \r\n 137 - 151 lcf 2B rcf                      Pwr L: 1    \r\n 152 - 188    ss DP 2b        142 - 188 Pwr R: 2       \r\n 189 - 229 lcf 1B rcf         189 - 234                \r\n              lcf 3B rcf      235 - 235 Speed: 6       \r\n                cf SF cf      236 - 245 Steal: 2       \r\n                   HR         246 - 253 Jump: 1        \r\n                   HB         254 - 257 Bunt: 4        \r\n 230 - 261    ss RG 2b        258 - 295 Clutch: T      \r\n 262 - 335         BB         296 - 331 H&R: SP        \r\n 336 - 349          K         332 - 345 Injury: 4      \r\n 350 - 364     lfl 2B rfl                   Age: 36    \r\n 365 - 397    ss RG 2b        346 - 384     RBI: 72    \r\n 398 - 499      cf EF cf      385 - 499     BB: 55     \r\nAVG: .257       www.          AB: 549         K: 50    \r\nOBP: .326 TPBaseball           H: 141       SB: 2      \r\nSLG: .344        .com         HR:     9     CS: 0      \r\n<\/pre>\n
Info on the PDF file:<\/p>\n
\r\n% pdfinfo -upw *** 1973_Hitters.pdf \r\nTitle:          1973 Batters.xls\r\nAuthor:         ***\r\nCreator:        PScript5.dll Version 5.2\r\nProducer:       Acrobat Distiller 8.0.0 (Windows)\r\nCreationDate:   Sat May 12 09:14:26 2007\r\nModDate:        Sat Aug 25 07:37:25 2007\r\nTagged:         no\r\nPages:          63\r\nEncrypted:      yes (print:yes copy:yes change:yes addNotes:yes)\r\nPage size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)\r\nFile size:      299175 bytes\r\nOptimized:      yes\r\nPDF version:    1.6\r\n\r\n% pdffonts -upw *** 1973_Hitters.pdf\r\nname                                 type              emb sub uni object ID\r\n------------------------------------ ----------------- --- --- --- ---------\r\nArialNarrow,Bold                     TrueType          no  no  no     224  0\r\nArialNarrow                          TrueType          no  no  no     225  0\r\nArialNarrow                          TrueType          no  no  no     195  0\r\nArialNarrow-Bold                     TrueType          no  no  no     196  0\r\nArial-BoldMT                         TrueType          no  no  no     197  0\r\n<\/pre>\n
pdftoppm will convert any page, but there’s some fishy font substitution. (pdftoppm -f 20 -l 20 -r 300 -gray -upw lenny -t1lib yes -freetype no 1973_Hitters.pdf x && pnmtopng x-000020.pgm > ! x.png<\/tt>)<\/p>\n
pdftoppm-example.png<\/a><\/p>\n
pdftops does better on the fonts, but one of the bold faces is still wrong. Turns out the Arial is converted to Helvetica, but the bold & the narrowness is lost. That’s easy to fix.<\/p>\n
Does the bold on the on-base rolls enhance or diminish readability? Here’s no bold:<\/p>\n
nobold1.png<\/a><\/p>\n
Wrote card_munge.pl<\/tt> to rearrange a selected range of pages.<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. PDF to Postscript.\n
  2. Tweak font definition.\n
  3. Convert to PBM.\n
  4. Cut out, pad, & scale each card. 2.5×3.5 in = 900×1260 pels @ 360 dpi. (Should scale, then<\/em> pad.)\n
  5. Cat them together.\n
  6. Convert to PNG with resolution specified.\n<\/ol>\n
    1973_team_hitters_026.png<\/a><\/p>\n
    To do:<\/p>\n