Ok, I'm looking for software so that I can print CD covers that will essencially have a tracklist (if possible, taken from MP3 ID3 tags) and allows me to put a small thumbnail of the album cover... like so...



anyone have any ideas?

I tried the Nero CD cover tool (since it gets the tracklisting from Burning Rom when you make an audio cd) but I can't put the thumbnails there or change the font to make it larger between lines (so that the thumbs go with the artist)

Cheers
JP

Hrm... interesting. Tried Sourceforge?

No, will try that too..

I'm beginning to think I might just have to do a template on photoshop and just do it that way...

I was going to suggest that. What you're asking seems pretty involved, and unless you can code it there's a good chance it's not done yet.

Too bad. We need to have a Pio "sourceforge" - there's lots of utils I'd love to get made (but I'll be damned if I know how to code anything more than a hello world cout loop anymore.)

-r-

I had a look on Download.com for you when you posted but the nearest match was here

Well, it mentions IDv3 sourcing (let's face it, it won't retrieve underground house track info from any CDDB), and thumbnails but without trying it I cannot vouch for it.

cheers Andy, but I think it's like most others I've tried... they let you use images, but either as background or just as a standalone image... I was looking for a way to have each track have an image beside it...

I found that the easiest way to do it is to make a template wit illustrator and then just work from there (been getting good results and it's relatively simple)...

Example:



Cheers
JP

Right, I see. Your custom approach must be the best way then. I could be a long way off the mark, but I wonder if you can set up some kind of macro to automate it?



I tend to buy more tunes on vinyl and rip rather than downloading them, so I was thinking you were scanning record covers in for each track (visual cue)... imagine how long that would take!





Actually, along similar(ish) lines I've been tapping out an Excel spreadsheet with all the tunes I've got on CD (not even going anywhere near there with my unripped vinyl collection!). I want to import it into Access as a tune selection tool, so I can use drop down menus to specify BPM ranges, Genre, sub genre, label, artist, age etc and let the DB list off the matches.



Of course the genre and sub genre is subjective and means I have to listen to all the tunes to enter this info... it may be some time.

I do not know of software that lets you put an album cover image...however, nero 6 has a cool feature. When you put your CD tracklist together (lets say you have 10 tracks you want to burn), you can open the label creator, click the 'tracklist' button & draw a box on the CD label. Voila, instant cd label without typing. You can choose fonts/colors too. Saves alot of time.

Haha, yeah man, I'll post it up tonight when I get home... do bare in mind that you still need to know at least the basics of illustrator to adjust things case by case... but with the template it should be much easier...

Thanks Zet, much appreciated

As promised, here's the template for 10 tracks... Illustrator CS2, let me know if you need a different version...

Link, File here (click, not Save as)

Not going to be extremely easy to change, but give it a try

Hints:

� double click text to edit, Esc to leave
� Artists are all one block (spacing is set, so write an artist name, then hit enter and you can write the second and so on)
� Track name + remix are all one block (so edit same as above)
� Track times are all one block (so edit same as above)
� Pics presented there are all same size (about 10x10mm), you'll need to edit those one by one... to me it's usually easiest to copy paste pics, edit size to 10x10 place them all kinda where I want them (using the guide there) and then using Horizontal Align and Horizontal Distribute (from the Align Window)

Let me know if you need more help with it... I'd like to improve the pics part of the template (to be able to place into a box, and make the pic automagically fit the box size... but allas, this is not InDesign )
Cheers
JP

Thankyou sir, my CD case is not such a mystery any more

Oh you absolute beauty.

I've been doing the 10-11 track and dups system for the last year, and keep backups on my PC. Ive been printing plain text tracklistings but been suffereing from WTFTuneIsTHAT syndrome a bit too often..

Solution!!

you the man

I love illustrator, Ill play about with this and see what results i get.. I can feel a heavy session of printing 40 CD covers off coming on after my uni work, and I love it!

Im considering adding to it in a way, Highlighting the trackname (or even just colouring it) according to my own personal 'house rainbow', basicly purple = dark house, yellow = uplifting etc etc. Any thoughts on that?

You can definitely do that... but you'll loose some visibility... here's what I'd do:

I'd do something like Pulse used to (he still has small round colour stickers which he uses to stick on tracks according to what he liked and disliked, so that he remembers) but in this case, you could add a small circle or square next to the time (so new column-ish to the left hand side to time) indicating the type of track...

...in fact, not a bad idea at all... I'll have to think about whether I want that

Here's how it looks on a folder...




forgot to mention before that I pick different colours for CDs as well, based on Date or CD... just helps differentiate that bit more...

Top notch. Very proffesional looking...



The stickers idea.. or rather a blog in illustrator is a keeper i recon



See what happens in a good brainstorming session!



Will have to deffine a good rainbow chart that im happy with so I dont have to reprint if i discover a new type of house or something heh.



Same folder as me too.

That looks like the way to go. I have messed around with illustrator at school but now I am out and do not own it. It is a + or - $500 program no. I have a friend who has it so maybe I could just use hers. Where are you getting the art work? Beatport.com comes to mind...

Loving the template Zet! Thanks Thanks & Thanks again! Ile spend some time on it later on today to see if I can come up with something useful cos im'e dead tired right now. Edited and used your template in Illustrator and I found it really great. I think il'e continue to use the nero cover generator to generate the tracklisting and timings etc from the cd and than copy and paste or just manually type the data into illustrator. It's relativly fast using the block text method. Thanks again. Just need to get the hang for the image copying part. Now I can enjoy spending time printing labels!



Quick question. Is there any way to force the images to become the same size as all the rest once copied into illustrator?