OK, so, I’ve been mucking around with a business card to give to people who are interested in my blog. It came time to try to print the dang things out, and I was a bit stumped. Microsoft Word has template files you can use to lay out a page, but I don’t have Word and really all I wanted was something where I could say, “Template 8371. Here’s my image. Go.”
I started by looking for a template someone has created for OpenOffice (you know it has to be out there), but I wasn’t getting results. I eventually went to Avery’s site, and searched for a template there, or the exact dimensions of the page if I had to make my own. I wasn’t having much luck when I saw something called “Print From the Web”. I signed up, told it the product number, and was thrown for a moment. I had to pick a pre-designed template. Finally I chose one, and on the next screen deleted everything in the template and added my image. Bing-bam, I had a PDF that exactly matches their paper. Except for not having a tabula rasa or single-image template, it could not have been simpler.
Good job, guys!
Unfortunately I seem to have a design that brings out the weaknesses of Ink Jet printers. Lots of light colors that require mixing in white – which is done by dithering the darker ink. Still, it’s better than nothing. There are probably printers that would do better, but to really get it done right, I guess I’d have to go to a professional shop. Not exactly in my price range for something as unimportant as this. Springing for the paper was my limit.
Here’s what I have right now. It’s funny how (at least with this printer) the MuddledRamblings.com stands out much more in print than on the screen. I had to boost up the background lettering quite a bit.
It’s a lot cleaner now, in it’s jumbled fashion. I just had to have a watermark so I used a question mark — not sure about that one. Then I just have to decide what email address to use (anythingnotalreadytaken@mac.com/), and I’m golden.
Here’s a list of the words in the background, roughly from top to bottom. Kids! See who can find them all first!
- Culture Shock
- You can’t read this
- Elephants of Doom
- Jer’s Novel Writer
- Fiction
- The American Road Myth
- Feeding the Eels
- Writing
- Eggs over-easy
- Sex
- Death
- Words
- Pirates!
- Beer
- Suicidal Squirrels
- Guest Poetry
- Stuff
- Books
- Rock Stacking
- Bars of the World
- Half-Baked Ideas
- Muddled University
- Idle Chit-Chat
- Rhymes with
- Accidental Actor
- Get Poor Quick
- Prague
- Secret Laboratory
- All For Me Grog
