Process Inkscape files and create sets of cards for board games

You'll need inkscape, convert, montage, and gs in your PATH.

Initialize a starter project

Install the gem globally with gem install svggvs and then run svggvs install <project> where project is the name of the directory to place the skeleton project files. You'll get a few files in there:

• template.svg, an Inkscape template that shoows how to do the basic SVGGVS template setup
• Cardfile, the file SVGGVS uses to define each card for printing
• Gemfile, in case you need additional gems. It has SVGGVS added already, but you may also want remote data gems like google_drive, for instance.

How it works

Create a Cardfile in your working directory. It should look something like this:

@session.configure do |c|
  c.svg_source = "template/template.svg"
  c.svg_merged_target = "template/output.svg"

  c.png_export_width = 825
  c.pdf_card_size = "750x1050"
  c.pdf_dpi = 300

  c.individual_files_path = "template/output/card_%02d.svg"
  c.png_files_path = "template/png/card_%02d.png"

  c.pdf_target = "merged.pdf"
end

@session.process do
  require './card_definitions.rb'

  CardDefinitions.processed.each do |card|
    @session.with_new_target do |target|
      datum = card.to_svggvs

      # #active_layers indicates what sublayers within the "Source" layer of
      # the Inkscape document should be toggled as visible. All others are hidden.
      target.active_layers = datum[:active]

      # Any text with {% liquid_like_tags %} will have those tags replaced with the
      # values within the hash passed in.
      # Additionally, you can label the following and have things replaced:
      # * svg:flowRoot will replace the text in the svg:flowPara within
      # * svg:text will replace the text in the first svg:tspan within
      # * svg:image will replace the xlink:href of the tag, changing the image to load
      target.replacements = datum[:replacements]
    end
  end
end

You can also have a .cardrc file which is run before loading the Cardfile.

Process your cards with svggvs:

• svggvs merged_file: Create a big SVG file with all cards as layers. Fine for simple setups, but will create monster files!
• svggvs svgs: Write out individual SVG files.
• svggvs pngs: Write out PNG files after writing out the SVG files.
• svggvs pdf: Write out the merged PnP PDF file.

You can also pass in --cardfile <new file> to load a different cardfile, say for card backs.