cardspoetry
I'm currently trying to print out some small poems onto card, and I stumbled onto the article "Typesetting modern & contemporary poetry with LaTeX".
Some of the examples in there are truly beautiful.
Does anybody know if the source for this, or anything else is available in the public domain?
Or how else would you create LaTeX cards with ornamental borders and ligatures like that?
If you have a large number of cards to organise and produce, the labels package may be useful for this. In particular, it will allow you to:
Lay out the cards as labels, appropriately sized and placed for printing and cutting;
Create a command to format a single card; and
Process a list of names to produce all the cards
How about this 15-minute mockup (it's far from perfect, but quite ready to be turned into a reusable command):
\documentclass[parskip]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[margin=15mm]{geometry}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pifont}
\begin{document}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\cardwidth}{5}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\cardheight}{8}
\newcommand{\stripcolor}{lime}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\stripwidth}{0.7}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\strippadding}{0.1}
\newcommand{\striptext}{INTER ARMA \ding{74}}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\textpadding}{0.3}
\newcommand{\topcaption}{LATIN}
\newcommand{\topcontent}{\textit{''Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges''}}
\newcommand{\bottomcaption}{Inter Arma}
\newcommand{\bottomcontent}{In times of war, the law falls silent.\\ \tikz{\fill[even odd rule] (0,0) circle (0.3) (-0.2,-0.2) rectangle (0.2,0.2);}}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\ruleheight}{0.3}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[rounded corners=0.2cm] (0,0) rectangle (\cardwidth,\cardheight);
\fill[\stripcolor,rounded corners=0.1cm] (\strippadding,\strippadding) rectangle (\strippadding+\stripwidth,\cardheight-\strippadding) node[rotate=90,above left,black,font=\LARGE] {\striptext};
\node[text width=(\cardwidth-\strippadding-\stripwidth-2*\textpadding)*1cm,below right] at (\strippadding+\stripwidth+\textpadding,\cardheight-\textpadding)
{\LARGE \topcaption}\\
\topcontent\\
\tikz{\fill (0,0) rectangle (\cardwidth-\strippadding-\stripwidth-2*\textpadding,\ruleheight);}\\
{\LARGE \bottomcaption}\\
\bottomcontent\\
};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
I used the pifont package for the star symbol (\ding{74}). It has also the other symbols depicted in your photograph, have a look here.
Edit 1: Now with a rotated symbol, and more options are set with keys:
\documentclass[parskip]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[margin=15mm]{geometry}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\cardroundingradius}{4mm}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\striproundingradius}{3mm}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\cardwidth}{5}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\cardheight}{8}
\newcommand{\stripcolor}{cyan}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\stripwidth}{1.2}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\strippadding}{0.1}
\newcommand{\striptext}{INTER ARMA \rotatebox[origin=c]{-90}{\ding{49}}}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\textpadding}{0.3}
\newcommand{\topcaption}{LATIN}
\newcommand{\topcontent}{\textit{''Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges''}}
\newcommand{\bottomcaption}{Inter Arma}
\newcommand{\bottomcontent}{In times of war, the law falls silent.\\ \tikz{\fill[even odd rule] (0,0) circle (0.3) (-0.2,-0.2) rectangle (0.2,0.2);}}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\ruleheight}{0.1}
\newcommand{\stripfontsize}{\Huge}
\newcommand{\captionfontsize}{\LARGE}
\newcommand{\textfontsize}{\large}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[rounded corners=\cardroundingradius] (0,0) rectangle (\cardwidth,\cardheight);
\fill[\stripcolor,rounded corners=\striproundingradius] (\strippadding,\strippadding) rectangle (\strippadding+\stripwidth,\cardheight-\strippadding) node[rotate=90,above left,black,font=\stripfontsize] {\striptext};
\node[text width=(\cardwidth-\strippadding-\stripwidth-2*\textpadding)*1cm,below right,inner sep=0] at (\strippadding+\stripwidth+\textpadding,\cardheight-\textpadding)
{ {\captionfontsize \topcaption}\\
{\textfontsize \topcontent}\\
\tikz{\fill (0,0) rectangle (\cardwidth-\strippadding-\stripwidth-2*\textpadding,\ruleheight);}\\
{\captionfontsize \bottomcaption}\\
{\textfontsize \bottomcontent}\\
};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
If the rotated symbol is too big, you may add some "don't size" modifier like \large inside the rotatebox before the \ding{n}.
Best Answer
For the first example the author gives some hints.
Beside this here a trial to give general advices as summary of comments:
Ornamental borders are shown in Where can I find examples of decorated borders/margins?
There is the nice package
pgfornamentby Altermundus, meanwhile better known as Alain Matthes. A search for posts containing 'pgfornaments' shows some great examples of usage.TikZ contains a library
decorations. For this an own tag does exist here, so you can go through all questions by clicking on the following text: decorations.You can also search all questions containing 'ornaments'.
Especially one question could perhaps tell you all, what your interested in: Does anybody know a good source of (free) ornaments, decorations, frames, backgrounds etc.?