CD/DVD Inserts with QR Code

cdlabelgen, version 4.2.0, april 2012

© 2001-2012, Avinash Chopde

Output in PostScript format

Source Code Available

Create inserts and envelopes online, visit:



Online CD/DVD Inserts - Fill-In Form

Note: As of March 2013, it creates Postscript output files only.

Using the Online CD/DVD Inserts and Envelopes web interface

The term "cover" is used to represent the front door of a CD jewel case. The term "tray card" is used to represent the rear tray of the CD jewel case. It is a bit tricky to open the tray card to put an insert in there, but it can be done. Nowadays, there are "slim cd cases" available, these are half-height CD jewel cases. They do not have a removable tray card area, so only the front cover can be used for an insert. There is also the "Create Envelope for CD/DVD" option, which creates a foldable cut-out suitable for using as an envelope for a CD/DVD.

Inside inserts for DVDs are created by creating a foldable two-page insert, outside inserts are similar, except they also have a spine. Note that DVD inserts may not fit in Letter or A4 sized paper, a bigger paper size may be required.

The list of items is printed as the table of contents for the CD/DVD. Each item should be in a line by itself, each empty line counts as an item, this produces a line skip in the output. Adding empty lines between items or at the end of the list of items can be used to get the contents to lineup in columns. To indent a particular item, add spaces to the beginning of the line. In addition, each item can be printed using a normal font, a bold font, a italic font, or a bold italic font using code words in the first column of the item - see examples below.

Items are printed in a multi-column format, if the item is too big to fit in the column, the item text will be truncated, unless the option "Enable Scaling Down of Items" is selected - in which case, the entire item will be scaled down to fit in the column (note that for very large item texts, this may make the item unreadable!).

If you have a large number of items, it may also be useful to select the option to "Omit Title & Subtitle on Tray", which gives more space for the items.

This online interface produces Adobe PostScript or Adobe PDF output. The PostScript file can be printed on a PostScript printer, the PDF file on any printer if you have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC. This online interface also produces a black and white GIF image which is not suitable for printing, but is good enough for review purposes, so you can keep tweaking your input trying various combinations in the web form until you like the way it looks.

All the input text to cdlabelgen is assumed to be in ISO Latin1 format.

Barcodes also supported - QR code, Code 39

Many forms of barcodes are supported including the very common QR code and Code 39 types. The drop-down list in the online interface for this tool shows all supported types.

Barcode information:

Wikipedia: QR code

Wikipedia: Code 39

GD::Barcode::Image is the Perl module used for barcode generation.

Tips, Examples, Help

Program Source Code and Utilities

The latest version of cdlabelgen is 4.2.0 , and the source code archive includes the cdinsert.pl web script used for this Online Interface. The package version 4.3.0 includes the simpler web script cdinsert-ps.pl and cdlabelgen-form.html: cdlbl430.zip - ZIP Archive or cdlabelgen-4.3.0.tgz - GZIPed TAR Archive or cdlabelgen-4.3.0-1.noarch.rpm - RPM package (if .rpm fails to install, use the source ZIP or TAR archive above). The actual cdlabelgen program has more features than are supported through this online web interface, here's the cdlabelgen man page with complete details. Latest releases of this program are also announced at the cdinsert page at freshmeat.net.

, and the source code archive includes the cdinsert.pl web script used for this Online Interface. The package version 4.3.0 includes the simpler web script cdinsert-ps.pl and cdlabelgen-form.html: or or (if .rpm fails to install, use the source ZIP or TAR archive above). GTKcdlabel a GTK+ frontend to cdlabelgen, also has CDDB support.

cdlabelgen only accepts PostScript EPS files for background images, it does not accept JPEG images.

Use the jpeg2ps utility at the PDFlib page. to convert JPEG files to PostScript.

Use the jpeg2ps utility at the PDFlib page. to convert JPEG files to PostScript. barcodegen is a utility can be used to create EPS files of barcode images, which can then be provided as input to cdlabelgen for overlaying on the tray images, similar to the way cdinsert.pl processes the Online CD/DVD Inserts and Envelopes web page.

barcodegen can be installed using the CPAN perl GD::Barcode::Image module.

barcodegen can be installed using the CPAN perl GD::Barcode::Image module. All the input text to cdlabelgen is assumed to be in ISO Latin1 format. The PostScript file output by cdlabelgen can be piped through ogonkify to use other character encodings, if needed.

More utilities for generation of Paper CD / Origami CD Cases available at http://www.tgries.de/origami/

Port for Atari (and compatible) running the Atari FreeMiNT OS available as a SpareMiNT rpm package on sparemint.atariforge.net, ported by Martin Tarenskeen.

History

After searching around for a decent cd inserts program, I finally found cdlabelgen, created by B W Fitzpatrick <fitz@red-bean.com>, that worked much better than the numerous demo, shareware, and commercial programs I looked at. I wanted something that created the list of items - the table of contents - in a nice fashion, something I could feed a Unix "ls -1R" listing after some editing. cdlabelgen does that perfectly. To make it possible to use this program on multiple platforms easily, I then created this online web interface and made a few enhancements. The original version: cdlabelgen version 1.5.0 :

Page produced and maintained by: Avinash Chopde <avinash@aczoom.com>, http://www.aczoom.com/.