Making Casette Tape Labels using L^ATEX

This document describes a way to maintain a simple ``album database'' and susequently print formatted casette tape labels. The commands to accomplish this have been implemented as a documentstyle option tape and should be used with the article documentstyle, i.e., it should be invoked with the command:

\documentstyle[tape]{article}

A casette has two sides and each side is assumed to hold one album. Each side of a casette tape label has three major fields of information, depicted in Figure 1.:

side

the textual information that goes on the front-flap. This is where most of the information goes.

title

the title given to the side that goes on the side face of the casette cover.

addendum

the textual information that goes on the back-flap of the casette tape cover.

1side–1title–1addendum–1 2side–2title–2addendum–2

Figure: The Layout of a Casette Tape Label and the Terminology Used

Each side of the tape in the database is defined using the following command:

\album{album-id}{side}{title}{addendum}

\album command defines an album. More precisely, it defines one side of a casette tape. It takes four arguements: first one is a unique label assigned to every album, the other three being side, title and addendum.

A tape label holds information for two sides. Following command produces the tape label:

\maketape[tape-id]{album1-id}% {album2-id}[optional tape title]

The album entry corresponding to album1-id goes on the left side of the tape label and those corresponding to album2-id on the right side. By default, individual titles are picked up from the album definition and formatted to appear under their own sides. If it is desired to have a single title as the case may be if both sides of a tape are by the same composer or group, then a title may be explicitly specified as the last arguement in which case individual titles of the two albums, as specified in their respective \album definitions, are ignored.

A tape label also has two minor fields of information, that go on the side face of the tape label, on either side of the title. They are:

globaltapeid

This goes on the left side of the title, almost flush with the left edge. This may hold information such as the owner's name. By default, it is empty and may be changed using a \renewcommand.

tapeid

This is an identification for individual tapes and goes to the right of the title almost flush with the right edge.

The width of the box in which the two fields described above are printed, is controlled by a variable \tapeidwidth and may be changed using a \setlength command. Also, by default, a vertical line is drawn separating the two boxes from the title region. It may be changed by a \renewcommand on the parameter \tapeidmarker — one may prefer a • ($\bullet$) as the demarcator.

The side and the addendum fields are set in a minipage environment, thus any of the regular paragraph formatting commands of L^ATEX may be used; various formatting environments, such as tabbing, tabular, itemize, enumerate, etc., can also be used. The other fields, i.e., title, globaltapeid and tapeid are set in a \parbox thus only \\ command may be used with no blank lines in the fields – a parbox permits only one simple paragraph. Just a reminder: to get indentation on a line following a \\ command, use \hspace* instead of \hspace; according to the manual, any \hspace after a \\ is ignored.

On the outside of the left hand edge of the tape label, three vertical lines are shown. In addition to enforcing a correct height for each of the three regions, they also serve as an indicator. Their height is invariant and in the case when more text has been typed in a region than will fit on the label, they indicate precisely by how much has the height been overshot. They should, of course, be left out when the label is cut.

No choice of fonts or fontsizes is enforced and one is completely free to choose these, although it is suggested that a small-sized font (such as those obtained by \small, \footnotesize or \tiny declarations) be used since the width of the paragraphs is rather small. Also, if more information need to be put than will fit, the inter-line spacing may be reduced using a \renewcommand on the parameter \baselinestretch.

Two tape labels can be fit on a page, and a \newpage declaration ought to be placed after every two \maketape commands.

It is assumed that each \album describes one side of the tape label, which is also usually the case. If one side of a tape contains more than one album then one will have to declare it as a single \album description. On the other hand, if a single album, or piece of music spans both sides of a casette tape, its description will have to be broken into two \album declarations.

The label can be cut out along the outer boundary – the border lines are meant to be part of the label so the cut should be just along the outer edge of the lines.