numbercard printing

[david@london]

as i don't have a working printer i have asked a couple of local printing shops if they could print up some number-cards, in colour, on thin matt card. i have forwarded them the jpgs of the high resolution pictures on the collector's weekly numbercard archive site. no luck..... the last guy looked totally be-flummoxed.

do any of the british forum members know of a company over here that could print some w.e. and some a.e. cards to the right sizes ? ...thanks for any suggestions

[gpo706]

Possibly the easiest way would be a scan and Photoshop them, assuming you want to customise the exchange name/numbers.

I have bought blanked sheets of cut-out dial cards from PhoneCo, they're pretty good, not perfect though.

[david@london]

my preference is for exact copies of genuine cards, so i wouldn't want to customize or alter them.

unfortunately i don't have a scanner/printer.....so just need to find a co. to print directly from the numbercard archive.

[twocvbloke]

I think that finding a printer company to do a job like that would probably charge more than it's worth, it'd be easier just going to somewhere like Staples or PC World (as much as I despise the latter) for a colour Laser printer (these days they're surpassing Inkjet in terms of print quality and cost effectiveness), that way you can print out as many as you like, aswell as have a good printer to print everything else off that you might need...

Not to mention with doing it at home you can get the sizes right through trial and error before committing to the final printout, with the printer co's they tend to expect everything they get in digital form to be the right size, otherwise they'd most likely charge extra for fixing the images to fit the specified sizes...

[Owain]

your local library probably has a scanner and a printer you can use, for a modest charge per sheet printed

[david@london]

......thanks -
yes the adjustment of the sizing thing at the printing shop seems to be the sticking point. the web-page does point out that it's a bit trial & error.

will perhaps give the local library a go.

[MDK]

The problem sizing properly comes from the image itself. PNG and JPG images contain dpi (dots per inch or pixels per inch) information which tells the software or printer how the digital size relates to the physical size. The image above is 460x461 pixels, but its dpi is set to 96, which means that if it's printed actual size then the resulting image would be approximately 4.8 inches square.

My image software allows me to specify the dpi setting when saving an image. If I scan an image at 300 dpi, then I want to save it with the same dpi setting. No resizing required, it should print exactly the same size I scanned it.

The image below is the SAME image (same pixel size 460x461) with a 300 dpi setting (which I'm guessing is probably the resolution at which it was scanned). I typically save graphical images in a PNG format as it does not leave the compression artifacts you see in JPG images. This should print the proper size without needing to resize it in the software.

[wds]

Well, I printed this image, and it took up the entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.  How do I get it to print the proper size?  I must be missing something here.

[MDK]

Does your printer software have a "print to fit page" default setting? Windows is sometimes stupid that way.

[MDK]

Yikes... I just tried the "Windows Printer Wizard"... there is no option to print actual size, although Windows "Paint" does a wonderful job.

[wds]

There we go!  Microsoft Paint to the rescue!

[Owain]

Personally I do it in Openoffice (Word equivalent)

If you want a x diameter circle, create a text box x by x, float it over the picture, then resize the picture until the circle just fits inside the box. Remove the text box and the circle should print the right size.

I also draw a line of x length and resize rectangular labels to match the length of the line.

[MDK]

OpenOffice is fantastic for a LOT of things... and it's free. I use it primarily to open MS Office files without having to fork out the big bucks Microsoft wants.

If the dpi is correct, OpenOffice will print JPG and PNG files the correct size too.

Also very good to know the drawing functions are very simple to use for creating your own.

[Bill]

MDK -

I haven't tried OpenOffice, but I understand it is pretty good.

Just FYI. There is no real need to fork out the big bucks Microsoft wants for the newest and flashiest version of Office. Unless you require some specific feature that is available only in the newest flashiest version, older versions will work perfectly well, and are available nearly free. I am still using Office 97 on two of my computers, and Office 2000 on the other two, and find them perfectly adequate. Of course, I am still running XP Pro.

Disclaimer: A lot of folks with new computers have started saving files in .docx format, for example, rather than the original .doc format. If someone sends you a .docx file, an older version of Word won't open it. But there are a number of free converters on the web that integrate themselves with older versions of Word and automatically open .docx files.

Bill

[DavePEI]

MDK -

I haven't tried OpenOffice, but I understand it is pretty good.

OpenOffice is now LibreOffice, still free and even better. While you can still download OpenOffice on the Net, the new versions are Libreoffice, functionally identical, except it had a lot more import filters, such as Microsoft Works filters which work, etc....

http://www.libreoffice.org/

Dave