pdfbingo – Generate Bingo Cards in PDF

Command Syntax

Description

Additional Information

About DaVince Tools
 
 

Command Syntax:

pdfbingo [-i key:value [-i key:value]] [-o outputfile] [-p profile] [-?] [count]

Arguments:

-i: Specify Info dictionary attribute values like title and author of document. The following attributes are available for use:
 
 

Attribute	Description
Author	The name of the person who created the document.
Keywords	Key words associated with the document.
Subject	The subject of the document.
Title	The title of the document.

Note that the attribute names are case sensitive (first character in uppercase). This option can be specified multiple times when setting multiple dictionary attribute values. To specify an attribute along with its data, separate the two with a colon ":". You will need to enclose the string in quotes if there are spaces in the data. For example, to set the title of a document to "Jumbo Mazes", use the following parameter:

-i "Title:Bingo Games"

In addition to these tags, custom tags can be used with this option; however, Acrobat Reader will not recognize them. The "CreationDate" and "Creator" attributes are automatically filled in by the program and cannot be overridden with this option.

-o: Specify the name of the PDF file to create. The ".pdf" extension should be included in the filename. If this option is not specified, the filename "maze.pdf" in the current directory is assumed.

-p: Specify a profile to use in the creation of the PDF file. Profiles contain maze page layout information such as margin and line widths and reside in the "pdfmaze.ini" file located in the windows base directory (typically "C:\WINDOWS"). The default profile "default" is used when this option is not specified.

-?: A brief summary of arguments is displayed.

[count]: Specify the number of mazes to generate. When a count is not specified, then a count of one is assumed.

Description:

• Up to 9 cards per page
• Multiple pages of cards can be created
  
• Each card on a page have an individual color, the same color, or no color
• PDF file compression support
  

[2cardcolor]
paper=letter
cardsperpage=1
leftmargin=36
rightmargin=36
topmargin=36
bottommargin=36
cellsize=80
borderlinewidth=.5
linewidth=.3
compression=true
cardsperpage=2
sequential=true
cardcolor=blue,red

…

Multiple profiles can exist in the file. The "-p" command line option determines which profile the program will use.

The screen output can be redirected to a file adding the DOS syntax ">filename" to the end of the command line. This can used to redirect output to a log file. The program returns an error code of 1 when a fatal error occurs, used in batch programs to test the success of the program.

The default profile is used when no profile is specified. The common profile (labeled "_common" in the ini file) defines options common to all profiles.  In addition to the default  and common profiles, the following profiles are defined in the pdfbingo.ini file that ships with the program:
 

Profile Names	Description
2page / 2pagecolor	2 cards per page / 2 cards per page in color (landscape mode)
4page /  4pagecolor	4 cards per page / 4 cards per page in color (portrait mode)
6page / 6pagecolor	6 cards per page / 6 cards per page in color (landscape mode)
8page / 8pagecolor	8 cards per page / 8 cards per page in color (landscape mode)
9page / 9pagecolor	9 cards per page / 9 cards per page in color (portrait mode)

 

Several option statements can appear after the profile line. These option statements have the following syntax:

option=value

Where option is the name of valid option (see below) and "value" is the value for the option. Depending on the option, "value" can be a number, a string or a Boolean value. The following values are all valid for a Boolean value:
 
 

Valid True Values	Valid False Values
True, T, On, Enable, Yes, Y	False, F, Off, Disable, No, N

These values are case insensitive (i.e. both "true" and "TRUE" are valid).

The following table describes options allowed in the pdfmaze.ini file (options are case insensitive):
 

Option	Data Type	Description
LeftMargin	Number (in points)	The left margin
RightMargin	Number (in points)	The right margin
TopMargin	Number (in points)	The top margin
BottomMargin	Number (in points)	The bottom margin
CardColor	Color name or HTML style color definition in the format #RRGGBB (#000000 = black, #FFFFFF = white, #0000FF = blue, etc.)	The color of the card. A single color specifies one color for all cards.  Multiple colors, separated by commas, specifies colors for individual cards on the page. Valid color names are available here.  Default value: white
TextColor	Color name or HTML style color definition in the format #RRGGBB (#000000 = black, #FFFFFF = white, #0000FF = blue, etc.)	The text color on the card (this does not include the number text or free space text). Like the CardColor option, a single color specifies one text color for all cards.  Multiple colors, separated by commas, specifies colors for individual cards on the page. Valid color names are available here.  Default value: black
CardsPerPage	Number. Valid values are 1,2,4,6,8,9	The number of cards per page. This number determines if the page will be in portrait or landscape mode
LineWidth	Number (in percentage of cell size, from 0.0 to 100.0)	The line width of the cell ( the box surrounding each number).
BorderLineWidth	Number (in percentage of cell size, from 0.0 to 100.0)	The width of the lines drawn for the card border. This value is typically equal to or greater than the LineWidth option.
Paper	letter | legal | executive | ledger | a0 | a1 | a2 | a3 | a4 | a5 | a6 | a7 | a8 | a9 | a10	The paper size
Sequential	Bool	If true, cards are generated in numerical order, guaranteeing no duplicate cards in run. If false, cards are generated in random order.
Compression	Bool	If true, use PDF compression. Default: no PDF compression.

 

All margin and arrow size parameters are specified in "points". A point is a unit of measurement equal to 1/72 of an inch. A 1/2 inch margin would be specified as 36 points

Beginning with Adobe Acrobat 4, you can copy the generated bingo cards to the Windows clipboard by click and holding the text selection button until the graphic selection button appears, then selecting it. This will allow a user to define a rectangle image and allow the user to copy that image to a desktop publishing application or any other application that supports the Windows clipboard.

Additional Information:

About DaVince Tools:

DaVince Tools was written in C++ using the DaVince Class Library, written by the same author as this program. The DaVince Class Library is a C++ library for developing PDF and TIFF applications. Contact the author at info@davince.com for more information on the availability of the class library.