Yet Another Script To Help Design Stamp Album Pages

I've been tinkering with the solution PostmasterGS designed using MS Publisher and Access to crank out album pages. I have to say, if you to have descriptoins on your album pages, his solution is absolutely awesome and saved me a TON of time.

But my Tryzub Ukrainian Stamp Album is designed in Scribus, and I didn't want to redo everything in MS Publisher..

Then I learned that Scribus was scriptable!

The most time consuming part for me is to get the box set up, with the image inside, the title on top and the description in the bottom, and make sure the distance between the title, the description, and the stamp box is the same between all the stamp layouts.

See this picture:



So, I created a REALLY CRUDE script to do that part for me.

Scribus' scripting engine is Python, which I had some familiarity with. I decided to use an XML file for storing the stamp data.

What the script does is:

1. It reads the stamp data for multiple stamps
2. It automatically generates the frame with the stamp image inside, along with the title, first day of issue and description, lines them up consistently and groups them to easy moving.

Right now the script dumps all the grouped stamp layouts on top of each other on one page and you need to move them around and lay them out the way you want.

There's no GUI for the settings. You need to edit the script and change it yourself. I added comments to the script to hopefully tell what to do.

If you just want to try it out really fast, you will need to do the following:

1. Download the zip file from here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5...NUUwtc1ZycVk
2. Get a copy of Scribus from http://www.scribus.net (Mac, Windows and Linux available)
3. Install the two fonts found in the zip file
4. Edit the script, stampalbum2.py with a text editor and change imagePath to point to where you put the image files in the zip file and save it. (Windows users need to use double blackslashes in the path. Mac and Linux users just need to use one forward slash)
4. Load Scribus and make a new document and make sure that the page is set to use MILIMETERS.

5. Go to Script->Execute Script and browse to the script file stampalbum2.py. Click on the script and click OK.
6. You should now have 4 stamps with descriptions on the page waiting to be moved.

You can edit the 2012_Stamps.xml file to add more stamps, if you want to.

So, I haven't done much with the script, but I got fed up with manually editing the XML file, so a friend of mine created a quick and dirty Java front end to add to the XML file that contains the stamp data.

You can get it from here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5...ObWItRDlOSE0

When you click on Update Document it does not automatically clear the form. The old stamp data will still be there. You just need to clear it yourself. I should have an update to fix that shortly.

Fixed the jar file so it clears the form when you click on Update Document. You can get it here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5...Eb2hDSVZzeHM

Here is slightly better (I hope!) explanation of my last 2 posts...

My script uses a file to pull stamp info from. The file is in a format called XML.

XML encases things inside of something calls TAGS. To define one stamp inside my data file, you need to type the following:

<stamp> 
    <category>Commemorative</category>  
    <name>New Mexico Statehood</name>  
    <fdoi>January 6, 2012</fdoi>  
    <width>38.6</width>  
    <height>25.2</height>  
    <description><![CDATA[New Mexico is the fifth-largest state in the U.S., known for its rich history, vibrant cultures, and stunning geographic diversity.  In 1848, northern New Mexico was ceded to the U.S. at the end of the U.S.-Mexican War. Two years later, Congress established the New Mexico Territory]]></description>  
    <image>newmexico.jpg</image> 
  </stamp>

The tags are the things inside the < >.

Well, I was getting really sick of typing all those tags. So a friend of mine wrote an app for me that puts up a form for me to fill out, so I don't have to type all those tags. Here is a screen shot:



For the XML file, you click on Browse and browse to the file that has your stamp data in it. You fill out the rest of the form, and click on Update Document and it adds the stamp to your file.

The next time you run the script in Scribus it will make a box on the page for you to mount the stamp with a title and description.

Made two new scripts. It takes the stamp layout and moves the title and description to the right or left.

So here is the original layout:



If you decide to move the title and description to the right, you simply run one script and it instantly does this:



If you would prefer the title and description on the left, there's another small script which will automagically do this"



I'll post the scripts later on tonight in case someone might actually use it.

Hi! I was trying to toy with the tool, but Scribus launches the following exception (the italian text doesn't seems relevant, so you can bypass it):

I haven't used this script in a while. I am using PostmasterGS' solution instead.

Damn Python and it's indentation errors! I'll take a peek at it later tonight if I have time.

PostmasterGS' solution is here:

http://goscf.com/t/32942

It works with Scribus and LibreOffice/OpenOffice.

I have tried it with Scribus and it works... a real time-saver, even for a Scribus-novice like me! I'm using it for an album of Italian stamps representing composers

I'm glad someone had a solution for you!