Using Org Mode, LaTeX, Beamer, and Medibang Paint to make a children's book

| drawing, emacs, geek, org, publishing

Story

  • It's time to make a smoothie!
  • I pour blueberries into the blender.
  • Mama adds hemp seeds.
  • I add spinach.
  • Mama blends it all with some water.
  • I peel and add a banana.
  • I add some yogurt.
  • Mama blends it again.
  • Yum yum!

Thumbnails

spread0.png spread1.png spread2.png spread3.png spread4.png spread5.png

Process

  • Prerequisites

    • ImageMagick
    • Texlive (probably)
    • latex-beamer
    • Org Mode and Emacs
  • Set up Org Mode export to Beamer

    (eval-after-load "ox-latex"
  ;; update the list of LaTeX classes and associated header (encoding, etc.)
  ;; and structure
  '(add-to-list 'org-latex-classes
                `("beamer"
                  ,(concat "\\documentclass[presentation]{beamer}\n"
                           "[DEFAULT-PACKAGES]"
                           "[PACKAGES]"
                           "[EXTRA]\n")
                  ("\\section{%s}" . "\\section*{%s}")
                  ("\\subsection{%s}" . "\\subsection*{%s}")
                  ("\\subsubsection{%s}" . "\\subsubsection*{%s}"))))

  • Set up image directories

    mkdir text-pages blank-spreads drawn drawn-pages

    text-pages Will contain one image per page of just the plain text.
    blank-spreads Will contain text spreads ready for drawing
    drawn Export one image per spread (without the text layers) from your drawing program
    drawn-pages Will contain one image per page combining text and drawing
  • Tweak the header.tex

    This file gets included in the LaTeX file for the children's book. Tweak it to change the appearance. In this example, I use black serif text at the bottom of the page. 

    \geometry{paperwidth=7in,paperheight=8.5in,left=0.5in,top=0.5in,right=0.5in,bottom=0.5in}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=black,bg=white}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=black,bg=white}
\usefonttheme{serif}
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}
{
  \begin{center}
  \vspace{0.7\textheight}                    
  \noindent
  \insertframetitle
  \end{center}
}
\usepackage[noframe]{showframe}
\renewcommand{\maketitle}{}

  • Write the story

    I used Org Mode to make it easy to write the story.

    Some considerations:

    • Because we're printing this as a saddle-stitched booklet, the number of lines should be a multiple of four. Sixteen is probably a good maximum.
    • The first heading is actually for the last page.
    • The second heading is for the cover page.
    • The third heading is for the first inner page, the fourth heading is for the second inner page, and so on. 
    #+OPTIONS:   TeX:t LaTeX:t skip:nil d:nil todo:t pri:nil tags:not-in-toc author:nil date:nil
#+OPTIONS: H:1
#+startup: beamer
#+LaTeX_CLASS: beamer
#+LaTeX_CLASS_OPTIONS: [20pt]
#+BEAMER_FRAME_LEVEL: 1
#+LATEX_HEADER: \input{header.tex}
#+PROPERTY: header-args :var pages=12

* Story

** 
** 
** 
** It's time to make a smoothie!
** I pour blueberries into the blender.
** Mama adds hemp seeds.
** I add spinach.
** Mama blends it all with some water.
** I peel and add a banana.
** I add some yogurt. 
** Mama blends it again.
** Yum yum!

  • Make the tex, PDF, page PNGs, and spread PNGs

    1. Go to the subtree for the story and use M-x org-export-dispatch (C-c C-e) with the subtree option (C-s) to export it as a Beamer file (option l b).

    2. Use pdflatex to convert the .tex to PDF. 

      pdflatex index.tex

    3. Create one PNG per text page with: 

      convert -density 300 index.pdf -quality 100 text-pages/page%02d.png

    4. Create spreads to draw on with: 

      montage text-pages/page*.png -tile 2x1 -mode Concatenate blank-spreads/spread%d.png

    5. Optionally, create a layered PSD with: 

      convert blank-spreads/spread*.png \( -clone 1,0 -background white -flatten -alpha off \) -reverse spreads-for-drawing.psd

  • Draw

    I imported the PNG layers into MediBang Paint on a Samsung Note 8 Android phone, and then:

    • imported photos
    • traced them
    • painted and shaded them
    • hid the text layers
    • exported one PNG per spread to QuickPic, renamed them, and uploaded them to Dropbox, because I couldn't figure out how to export to Dropbox directly

    Layer folders were handy for organizing spread-related images. I couldn't seem to move all of the layers in a layer folder together on Android, but the iPad was able to do so. If I didn't have the iPad handy, I combined the layers by exporting a PNG and then importeing it back into MediBang Paint.

    This was a decent setup that allowed me to draw and paint even when I was in bed nursing A- and waiting for her to fall asleep. I held the phone with one hand and rotated the canvas as needed so that it was easier for me to draw lines with my right. Because of the awkward position and the small screen size, the lines are not as smooth as I might like, but the important thing is that they're there. Whee! =)

    It turns out to be possible to use the free MediBang Pro drawing program under Wine on Linux to import the PSD and save it to the cloud. I was also sometimes able to switch to drawing with iPad Pro with Pencil, but it was harder to find time to do that because that usually made A- want to draw too.

    Anyway, after I drew and exported the PNGs, the next step was to…

  • Convert the drawn spreads back to pages and combine them with the text

    Here's some code that combines the drawing and the text. Keeping the drawing and the text separate until this stage (instead of exporting the PNGs with the text) makes it easier to change the text later by recreating the text PNGs and running this step. 

    (defun my/combine-spread-drawing-and-text (page num-pages)
  (let ((gravity (if (= (% page 2) 1) "West" "East"))
        (spread (/ (% page num-pages) 2)))
    (shell-command
      (format 
       (concat "convert \\( "
               "drawn/spread%d.png -gravity %s "
               "-chop 50%%x0 +repage \\) "
               "text-pages/page%02d.png -compose darken "
               "-composite drawn-pages/page%02d.png")
       spread gravity page page))))

(cl-loop for i from 0 to (1- pages) do
         (my/combine-spread-drawing-and-text i pages))

  • Create print spreads for saddle-stitching

    This code pairs up the drawn pages into a PDF that can be printed duplex. Make sure to choose the option to flip along the short edge. I hard-coded the page orders for 4-, 8-, 12-, and 16-page booklets. 

    (let* ((page-order
        '((0 1 2 3)   ; hard-coded page sequences
          (0 1 2 7 6 3 4 5)
          (0 1 2 11 10 3 4 9 8 5 6 7)
          (0 1 2 15 14 3 4 13 12 5 6 11 10 7 8 9)))
       (sequence
        (mapconcat (lambda (d) (format "drawn-pages/page%02d.png" d))
                   (elt page-order (1- (/ pages 4))) " ")))
  (shell-command
   (format
    "montage %s -tile 2x1 -mode Concatenate print-duplex-short-edge-flip.pdf"
    sequence)))

  • Print and bind

    After printing and folding the book, I used tape to make the book hold together. Tada!

  • Create on-screen PDF for reading

    A little bit of manipulation so that the last page is in the right place: 

    (shell-command
  (format "convert %s onscreen.pdf" 
    (mapconcat 'identity (cl-loop for i from 1 to pages 
      collect (format "drawn-pages/page%02d.png" (% i pages))) " ")))

  • Create thumbnails of spreads

    (cl-loop
 for i from 0 to (1- (/ pages 2)) do 
 (shell-command
  (format 
   (concat "convert "
           "\\( blank-spreads/spread%d.png "
           "drawn/spread%d.png "
           "-compose darken "
           "-resize %dx -flatten \\) "
           "\\( +clone -background black -shadow 50x1+%d+%d \\) "
           "+swap -compose src-over -composite "
           "thumbnails/spread%d.png")
   i i width shadow shadow i)))

  • Ideas for next steps

    • Better thumbnails for easy previews
    • PDF for online reading
    • More layout possibilities (photos, verses, etc.)
    • Smaller books:

      • crop marks on a full-page print, or
      • the right imposition rules to print more pages on a sheet
You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.