These are two handy commands that you can use to create and print greeting cards. No, you won't create the 'entire' card, but with 'ccard', you can create a GeoPaint file with vertical and horizontal guidelines where you would have the folds of the card. Once you have used the command to create the file, you may then open GeoPaint and edit your card. When you have finished creating it, you then use the 'pcard' command to print the file. Even though there are two guidelines in the file, they will not be printed on paper, as long as you use this command to do the printing for you. If you print it directly from GeoPaint, then the guidelines will show up on paper.
The idea is to have four sections on the GeoPaint page, and when folded, it will become a greeting card with a front and back cover and left and right inside pages. The guidelines help you to identify the location of the folds when editing your card. There is a guideline running vertically, halfway across the page and another running horizontally, halfway down the page. You do all of your editing in an upright manner. But when you use the 'pcard' command to print the file, the upper half of the page will be rotated upside-down so it will be properly oriented when folded.
The four editing areas are laid out as follows:
Upper right corner - Front cover
Upper left corner - Back cover
Lower right corner - Inside right
Lower left corner - Inside left
@CREATING A CARD FILE
The proper way to create a card is to first use the ccard command to generate a GeoPaint file with the guidelines in it.
Example: ccard filename
This will create a GeoPaint file on the currently active drive. It will be blank except for the two guidelines.
Once you have done this, you can load the file into GeoPaint and add text, photo scraps, or draw your own graphics as you please. Just keep in mind that anything drawn where the guidelines are will not be printed. The guidelines are where the folds will be. You might want to allow a certain amount of distance from these guidelines as margins for each page of the card when it is folded.
Since some printers can only print at 60 dots per inch horizontally, this layout with four editing areas would not print properly since the right hand 25 percent of the page would not get printed. For that reason, you can add a parameter to tell geoSHELL that you will be using a 60 dpi printer.
Example: ccard 6 filename
By adding a 6 after the ccard command, the GeoPaint file that is created will have two vertical guidelines instead of one. The one that represents the center fold of the card will be moved slightly to the left. This will be the center when printed. The right hand guideline identifies the right hand edge of the card. Anything from this point over will not be printed.
Load up the two Christmas cards that were included with this package and see how they look on the screen. Then use 'pcard' to print the appropriate one depending on whether your printer is capable of a resolution greater than 60 dpi or not.
@PRINTING A GREETING CARD
When you are ready to print your greeting card, use the 'pcard' command to do so. This way, the guidelines will not be printed. The card command uses the GEOS printer drivers when printing.
Example: pcard filename
This will proceed to print the desired greeting card. Your standard GEOS printer driver will be used for this purpose.
You can use the STOP key to halt the printing in case the card does not look like you want it to. For some of the multi-pass printer drivers, you may have to hold the key down for several seconds until it responds.
When the card is printed, the upper half of the GeoPaint file is actually flipped upside down as it is printed. This way, the card will be properly oriented when folded. The lower half of the GeoPaint file is printed just as it appears on the GeoPaint screen. The lower half will be the inside of your card, while the upper half will be the front and back covers. When folded, you will have a card that is 5.5 inches tall by 4.25 inches wide.
graphics as you please. Just keep in mind that anything drawn where the guidelines are will not b
@MAKING MULTIPLE COPIES
By using geoSHELL's 'exec' command, you can effectively create multiple copies of a greeting card. Simply create a GeoWrite file with the following commands in it:
pcard filename^ {don't forget the terminator}
exec multicard^
Now, assuming that you give this exec file the name of 'multicard', it will just keep repeating itself until you press the STOP key. Of course, a much faster way would probably be to just create one greeting card and take it to the local copy shop to make the additional copies.
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