Software that makes placemats

[jdaw1]

To help those unwilling to open a PDF:

[Glenn E.]

Does anyone know, without resorting to significant effort, how many glasses the software can reasonably place on a 11" x 17" placemat?

I have done 11 glasses on standard US Letter (8.5" x 11") and that was fine. That leads me to believe that it might be possible to squeeze 4 rows of 6 glasses each onto an 11" x 17" placemat. Has anyone done that before?

[jdaw1]

There are separate pages describing: the choosing of the page size

• North American paper sizes:
  • !
  • 12→16: either split over multiple sheets of /USL, or /USL2 = US Ledger = 11″×17″

I have done 11 glasses on standard US Letter (8.5" x 11") and that was fine.

Eleven?! That's way too tight for glasses that aren't thimbles. You sure that wasn’t US Legal? For the Crusting Pipe glasses I now have a maximum of six on A4. Anyway, many such questions are answered by the following diagram.

[Glenn E.]

Eleven?! That's way too tight for glasses that aren't thimbles. You sure that wasn’t US Legal? For the Crusting Pipe glasses I now have a maximum of six on A4.

Hmm. That's possible, I guess. I'd have to pull it up (at home) to be sure. As I recall it was tight, but not so tight that the glasses were touching or even too close to pick up.

Thanks for the chart - that answers all of my questions nicely.

[jdaw1]

We tried the opacity test, from two different laser printers. The printers were too different, but both useless. Good experiment; bad result. Scrapped.

Opacity conversation continued in thread entitled Quantifying opacity in TNs.

[jdaw1]

For blind-tasting ‟What is it?” voting, typically the person who brought a bottle should not guess. Rectangles can be crossed out by setting VoteRecorderCrossedBox to code evaluating to a boolean, that code typically referring to WithinTitles and NameNum.

[RAYC]

Does this easily allow for occasions where one person brings blind bottles for him/herself but also for adoption by others (where that person obviously knows the identity of all bottles he/she is providing but the adopters know only the price they are paying and not the wine itself)?

[jdaw1]

VoteRecorderCrossedBox is code returning a boolean. Code can return true for any desired combination values of WithinTitles and NameNum. So it allows for any such occasion. Whether or not easily, hmmm, you tell me what form of parameters would be both flexible and easy?

[RAYC]

The fact that it allows is sufficient.

If it is not "easy" (by the standards of a non-programmer following your instructions), i would suggest that the default should be that crosses are not included (which is indeed already the case if i understand your post correctly).

[jdaw1]

Correct. Default is as-was.

[jdaw1]

Default slightly changed. Now true if the title = the name (e.g., bottle called ‟JDAW”, person called ‟JDAW”).

First draft of the placemats.

• Observe use of the VoteRecorderCrossedBox feature.

[jdaw1]

Readers might wish to comment on a putative new policy. I intend to post, near the end of each tasting’s arrangement thread, the changed parameters. So this might be fifty lines of code, thus formatted.

The thinking is that somebody who liked some feature could more easily see how it was done.

The code will be marked with the version of the placemat software, as things might not work exactly the same in later versions.

Comments? Objections? Improvements?

[DRT]

I think it would be better to post the code in this thread and link it to the appropriate tasting review.

[jdaw1]

I thought it better to post it near the placemats.

[DRT]

I thought it better to post it near the placemats.

Posting code in a post that is intended for organising a Port tasting might make people think we are geeks.

[jdaw1]

This thread is for discussion about the software. Perhaps this collection of code should go in a new thread in the Reference section?

[DRT]

This thread is for discussion about the software. Perhaps this collection of code should go in a new thread in the Reference section?

Or you could output the interesting code to the last page of the placemats file and it could be accessed by downloading the placemats?

[jdaw1]

This thread is for discussion about the software. Perhaps this collection of code should go in a new thread in the Reference section?

Or you could output the interesting code to the last page of the placemats file and it could be accessed by downloading the placemats?

That is fundamentally difficult. Sorry, no.

[jdaw1]

This thread is for discussion about the software. Perhaps this collection of code should go in a new thread in the Reference section?

∃ Parameters for the placemat software.

[jdaw1]

Note to self: a glass-by-glass version of FontSizesSetsGlassesPages is needed.

If there are bottles with labels like ‟Mz”, ‟SW”, ‟QH”, ‟QC”, and other bottles with labels like ‟JDAW”, ‟AHB”, ‟DRT”, the sizing of the two sets should be independent. Easiest would be to add flexiblity to FontSizesSetsGlassesPages, so that each element can be an array (in which case its glass-by-glass elements are used) or a non-array.

[jdaw1]

+CircletextsTryToResonateWithRays

The code as originally written was meant to produce one page of glasses, perhaps A4, perhaps A3. Modern usage is typically A4, with ≤6 glasses per page, and multiple pages. The default value of GlassesOnSheets has, rather belatedly, been adjusted to match this modern default behaviour. 

[jdaw1]

Also, perhaps a trivial detail but - is there a setting to define the width of any exclusion area on the glasses sheets between the outer ring of text as defined by circlearrays and the inner text defined by titles, belowtitles? In a couple of cases experimenting I found that the inner text can (virtually) meet the outer, and therefore by allowing optionally configurable decrease of the effective inner circle size (in which the title/belowtitle are sized and placed) by a small degree (say <=5%, configurable, or a fixed amount e.g. 1mm) might help clarity?

Done in the code, even though not in the manual: ExclusionAnnulusProportionInnerRadiusTitlesAboveBelow and ExclusionAnnulusProportionInnerRadiusOvertitles.

[JacobH]

Should the font selected for the place-mat have, in effect, built in negative kerning, in that some of the glyphs go over the y-axis, then there may be a clash between some letters and the lines on the question and other pages.

For example, the J in Jannon T Moderne Pro Italic overlaps the y-axis (in red) quite considerably:

kern2.png (5.05 KiB) Viewed 19858 times

This results in a clash when a placemat is generated using the font and my initials:

kern.png (2.33 KiB) Viewed 19858 times

I imagine the problem is only regularly encountered with Italic fonts but could be quite severe if one used a swashed one.

Ideally, I suppose, one would like the software to detect this negative spacing and compensate, but I am not sure if this is feasible or practical. I therefore flag it up for comments rather than as a bug.

[jdaw1]

Should the font selected for the place-mat have, in effect, built in negative kerning, in that some of the glyphs go over the y-axis, then there may be a clash between some letters and the lines on the question and other pages.

In some places the software establishes widths with PathBBox, a more accurate version of the built-in pathbbox. In other places it uses something like stringwidth pop, as called by StringWidthRecursive. The former is slower but correctly copes with the observed problem, and can become more widespread.

So the excellent observation is noted and will be acted upon, even if not for several weeks.

Your image suggests that the grey line is drawn after the names. That shouldn’t be happening: presumably your example is from a voting sheet, which therefore needs an extra fix.

[jdaw1]

Done in the code, even though not in the manual: ExclusionAnnulusProportionInnerRadiusTitlesAboveBelow and ExclusionAnnulusProportionInnerRadiusOvertitles.

Forgot to say: now mentioned in the manual.

[jdaw1]

In some places the software establishes widths with PathBBox, a more accurate version of the built-in pathbbox. In other places it uses something like stringwidth pop, as called by StringWidthRecursive. The former is slower but correctly copes with the observed problem, and can become more widespread.

Thinking further, which should be used? Let’s consider a swashed font, in which some letters have a tail that is meant to go under the previous letter. So for the text in a circle, that going under should be retained.

But for text-in-a-box (and, Titles-style, text-within-a-circle), it shouldn’t.

This is awkward for the circle-text in a straight line. The start and finish should be PathBBox-style, but the interior should be stringwidth-style. This will be fiddly.

[JacobH]

I notice Almibar Pro is currently available for $7.99 which might be helpful for testing swash handling:

B.gif (5.27 KiB) Viewed 27042 times

...

[jdaw1]

Almibar Pro

I have FreebooterScript on my computer, which is sufficiently silly for this purpose.

[jdaw1]

Bonus question. The voting sheets and decanting-note sheets have grey straight lines on them. Currently the text is imperfectly fitted to the centre of these lines. So the text, deliberately, might overlap the near half of a line.

Should the fitting be to the centre, or to the edges of the lines?

[jdaw1]

Should the font selected for the place-mat have, in effect, built in negative kerning, in that some of the glyphs go over the y-axis, then there may be a clash between some letters and the lines on the question and other pages.

For example, the J in Jannon T Moderne Pro Italic overlaps the y-axis (in red) quite considerably:
[!]

Fixed.

Except the distance of items of Names from the waterboxes.

[jdaw1]

Except the distance of items of Names from the waterboxes.

Fixed. Also a workaround added to circumvent a bug in Adobe Distiller.

As ever, please use the latest version.

[DRT]

This looks like an elegant solution. Collecting most of the relevant data first into two arrays to then be used by the more complicated stuff is just one step closer to a Placemat Wizard.

Edit by JDAW:

• Data is mostly in two arrays, PeopleData and PortData, and is decanted from there into the parameter arrays. For large tastings this can be easier, as it keeps together the relevant items of Titles, Overtitles, FillTexts, etc.

[jdaw1]

Uncle Tom has suggested another feature for the software, on which comment would be welcomed.

At some tastings there can be insufficient table space for the TN sheets. So, for very formal tastings, such as the Olympic tasting, there should be A6 tasting booklets, properly bound. Much of this is easily acomodated: /TastingNotesPaperType /A6 def already works; and /GlassesOnTastingNotePages [ GlassesOnSheets {{[ exch ]} forall} forall ] def would put one port on each of the A6 tasting-note sheets.

So, questions:

• Would each tasting booklet require a cover sheet? Saying what?

• With one wine per A6 sheet, I think the pages should be less cluttered. The column titles (currently ‟Times”, ‟Eye”, ‟Nose”, ‟Mouth”, ‟Score”) can be zapped with /TastingNotesColumnHeadings [] def and /TastingNotesColumnRelativeWidths [] def, which would also remove the vertical dashed lines. Would there be any other changes to the required page layout?

• With one wine per A6 sheet, should each sheet have a copy of the glasses tasting circle. Small, or A6-fillingly big? It might be tricky to have that faded, but if possible, should it be faded? (Technical question in comp.lang.postscript.)

• Other suggestions.

[DRT]

At some tastings there can be insufficjent table space for the TN sheets. So, for very formal tastings, such as the Olympic tasting, there should be A6 tasting booklets, properly bound.

Given our habit of late changes to line-ups, attendance, etc I think the logistics of having these bound will prove to be extremely challenging.

As an alternative, we could purchase a relatively large batch of these and simply produce a sticker that could be applied to the front cover with the name and date of the tasting, perhaps with a second sticker listing the wines and attendees that could be placed inside the front cover as a title page?

[jdaw1]

Given our habit of late changes to line-ups, attendance, etc I think the logistics of having these bound will prove to be extremely challenging.

If the binding is expensive per unit, agreed. But if it the the first item that costs most, each subsequent being relatively cheap, we could have some binders for un-named people, much as we currently do with TN sheets.

with a second sticker listing the wines and attendees that could be placed inside the front cover as a title page?

Much less smart, as the pages would not be named with wines.

[DRT]

Given our habit of late changes to line-ups, attendance, etc I think the logistics of having these bound will prove to be extremely challenging.

If the binding is expensive per unit, agreed. But if it the the first item that costs most, each subsequent being relatively cheap, we could have some binders for un-named people, much as we currently do with TN sheets.

Your response doesn't address my point, which is logistics, not cost.

A printer will require a significant amount of time to print, bind and deliver these to us. That time scale will be impacted by what is meant by "properly bound". My suggestion was intended to circumvent those difficulties, not to save money.

[RAYC]

binding is a bit OTT in my opinion. Printing in booklet form can be done on most printers, and A6 is small enough to be stapled.

However, I must say i do not find the space on the sheets, or the A4 format, to be a problem.

I would say tht TN sheets are better printed on standard A4 rather than heavy gsm cartridge paper - allows them to be folded and put in jacket for return home!

However, i did think the use of cartridge paper for placemats was very good, and i must admit i prefer the use of A3 to 2xA4.

Other suggestions? clipboards...?

[jdaw1]

I would say tht TN sheets are better printed on standard A4 rather than heavy gsm cartridge paper - allows them to be folded and put in jacket for return home!

Seconded.

However, i did think the use of cartridge paper for placemats was very good, and i must admit i prefer the use of A3 to 2xA4.

Agreed, except that DRT’s comment applies also to this.

[RAYC]

However, i did think the use of cartridge paper for placemats was very good, and i must admit i prefer the use of A3 to 2xA4.

Agreed, except that DRT’s comment applies also to this.

I can probably print A3 myself on similar quality paper. Happy to give a trial run for the next tasting. (when is the next tasting, btw....?)

[jdaw1]

I can probably print A3 myself on similar quality paper. Happy to give a trial run for the next tasting. (when is the next tasting, btw....?)

All good, and happily not needing any enhancements to the placemat code.

I think we need Tom to enlarge upon his suggestion.

[jdaw1]

Technicals

• With one wine per A6 sheet, should each sheet have a copy of the glasses tasting circle. Small, or A6-fillingly big? It might be tricky to have that faded, but if possible, should it be faded? (Technical question in comp.lang.postscript.)

Happily settransfer can fade the circles, as illustrated by the following code.

Code: Select all

%!

/SquaresForm
<<
	/FormType 1
	/BBox [ 0 0 60 60 ]
	/Matrix matrix identmatrix
	/PaintProc
	{
		pop
		0    setgray  0 dup 60 dup rectfill
		0.5  setgray 12 dup 36 dup rectfill
		0.75 setgray 24 dup 12 dup rectfill
	}
>> def  % /SquaresForm

<< /PageSize [84 228] >> setpagedevice

12 12 translate
SquaresForm execform

0 72 translate
gsave
{/null exec 0.2 mul 0.8 add} dup 0 currenttransfer put settransfer
SquaresForm execform
grestore

0 72 translate
SquaresForm execform

showpage 

(Works in Adobe Distiller; works in GhostScript; but settransfer ignored by Apple Preview. So good in the important two of the three.)


Forthcoming Placemat Feature
This suggests a more general feature, a boolean TastingNotePagesBackgroundCircles, and a real TastingNotePagesBackgroundCirclesFadingFactor, being both >0 and ≤1, and defaulting to 0.2. These would produce, on the TN pages, a diagonal stripe of circles, tightly fitted” , one for each wine on that TN page. If there’s only one wine ‟tightly fitted” would typically be the width of the page.

”  Tightly fitted? What if there are two pages of TNs, one holding five ports, one holding six? Should the circles be compelled to be the same size? I say not, as they are so faint, and as one typically sees only one TN page at a time.

[uncle tom]

Spiral binding is quite cheap to have done, and works better with a small format than other binding methods, as the pages are easier to lay flat.

Customising them to each participant would be a bit of a struggle, but customising them to the event would be quite simple.

Easiest way would be for each page to be printed four up on an A4 sheet. These can then be stacked and guillotined, and the sets offered up to the spiral binder, which punches and stitches in a single action.

I am also told by my printers that for an A6 booklet, placing the comb on the long side is much to be preferred.

I would suggest that the front cover be colour printed on 250 gsm card, the inner pages on 120 gsm white paper, with the last page on plain white card.

[jdaw1]

Easiest way would be for each page to be printed four up on an A4 sheet.

Easiest for me would be to print to A6. Would that be difficult for the printers?

I would suggest that the front cover be colour printed on 250 gsm card

Saying what? One or two lines of tasting title; name of person; that’s it? For simplicity of collation the person name could be omitted from the internal pages.

[RAYC]

My take is that this seems to be a lot of effort for no functional benefit over A4 tasting sheets and very little aesthetic benefit. Particularly when 50%+ will never be used.

I have previously tried using an A6 booklet for notes before and must admit i prefer the width of an A4 page to scribble on, so would strongly favour retention of A4 tasting note sheets even if A6 option is incorporated.

[uncle tom]

Easiest for me would be to print to A6. Would that be difficult for the printers?

For short print runs, the printers use laser printers - printing A4 avoids the need to re-config the paper tray, and I'm not sure if the machines can handle paper smaller than A5.

Saying what? One or two lines of tasting title; name of person; that’s it? For simplicity of collation the person name could be omitted from the internal pages.

Title of event, date, venue, logo etc. - the cover could be personalised..

[uncle tom]

My take is that this seems to be a lot of effort for no functional benefit over A4 tasting sheets

The functional benefit is to overcome the lack of table space for A4 sheets.

[RAYC]

My take is that this seems to be a lot of effort for no functional benefit over A4 tasting sheets

The functional benefit is to overcome the lack of table space for A4 sheets.

The few tastings where this has been a problem, folding an A4 sheet into thirds (or smaller) has done the trick for me.

A4 sheets on regular gsm paper (say, 75gsm) are also to be commended for folding down small for jacket pockets.

For fancy tastings, i can see an aesthetic benefit to an A6 booklet printed with card and bound.

[jdaw1]

(Works in Adobe Distiller; works in GhostScript; but settransfer ignored by Apple Preview. So good in the important two of the three.)

Error. Works in Adobe distiller, not in Ghostscript nor in Preview. See PostScript, and output from Adobe Distiller, Ghostscript, and Apple Preview.

[jdaw1]

Please inspect and comment upon the tasting-note pages in www.jdawiseman.com/2012/20120731_circles_on_TNs.pdf. The idea is that each A6 TN page would be for one port only, and could have this as a faint background.

[PhilW]

Please inspect and comment upon the tasting-note pages in www.jdawiseman.com/2012/20120731_circles_on_TNs.pdf

I looked at the pages; my comment was "ooh, a Graham's mini-vertical - yes please!"