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racovimge

racovimge is a minimalistic library for generating random placeholder book covers. It allows generating svg or png covers, and can be used as a python library or as a command line utility.

Installation

pip install --user racovimge

Basic Usage

import racovimge

# generate random svg cover
cover = racovimge.random('As I Lay Dying', 'William Faulkner')

# generate specific cover and write it to a file
with open('cover.svg', 'w') as stream:
    stream.write(racovimge.cover(
        title='The Ambassadors',
        # note that author is optional.
        # Multiple authors can be passed as a non-str iterator as well.
        author='Henry James',
        template='Simple Dark',
        colors=['#d3dcf2', '#829fe4', '#6692c3', '#4878a4', '#00305a'],
        font='/path/to/otf/or/ttf/file',
        font_size=120,  # Used for the title of the book.
        font_size_author=70  # Used for the authors.
        ))

# Passing non-str iterable as title allows for explicit line breaks,
# which is useful for longer titles
cover = racovimge.random(['Strange Case', 'of Dr. Jekyll', 'and Mr. Hyde'], 'Robert Louis Stevenson')

# generate random png file and write it to file
# note that unlike for svg, the file must be opened in binary mode
with open('cover.png', 'wb') as stream:
    # font sizes can be set explicitly even for random covers
    stream.write(racovimge.png_random('The Odyssey', 'Homer', font_size=200))


# specifying keyword arguments for random generators enables limiting the output results
cover = racovimge.random(
    'The Killer Angels',
    'Michael Shaara',
    templates=['Blocks', 'Simple Dark', 'Tiles'],
    fonts=racovimge.fonts[:4],
    schemes=racovimge.color_schemes[2:8])

Using as Command Line Utility

To generate a random cover:

racovimge One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest --authors "Ken Kesey"

Note that unlike titles author names must be quoted. Multiple space-separated authors can be supplied.

To generate a png cover:

racovimge --png A Moveable Feast -a "Ernest Hemingway"

To generate multipe covers with a given prefix:

racovimge The War of the Worlds -a "H. G. Wells" --output war --count 10 --png

This will create files war01.png, war02.png, ... war10.png in the current directory. You can also specify an absolute path:

racovimge The Chronicles of Narnia -o /home/user/books/narnia/cover -c 5

Limitations

The cover templates, color schemes, and fonts, have been carefully selected to work in combination with each other. Despite of that, some combinations of various parameters will still produce aesthetically unpleasing covers. In particular, some of the fonts combined with longer book titles do not fit completely within some of the cover templates. This can be ammended by decreasing the font size, explicitly specifying linebreak points in the titles, or by just generating a different random cover. Thankfully, racovimge makes the later process quite easy, and it can be repeated multiple times until you get a cover you're a satisfied with.

Generating png covers requires rsvg to be installed on Linux system. On Windows and MacOS, it is untested and unlikely to work.

The current version of racovimge is 0.9, and should be considered a beta. The core functionality is complete, but it still contains a number of rough edges. The documentation can be improved, particularly in regards to the command line utility. The API for some of the optional parameters can be changed to accomodate non-default values better. Minor fixes to existing color schemes and cover templates can be made, as well as more schemes, templates, and fonts can be added to the library. Unfortunately, the author of the library does not have time to do any of these things, and so racovimge will remain in its current state for an as of yet undetermined amount of time.

Acknowledgements

racovimge is inspired by the cover-generator found in the excellent calibre e-book manager. racovimge also borrows some color schemes and svg elements from it.

The following free fonts are bundled with racovimge: Alex Brush, Bellota, Bradley Gratis, Caladea, Crimson, Gidole, Glacial Indifference, Great Vibes, Horta, Liberation Serif, Libre Baskerville, Orkney, Petit Formal Script, Sofia, and Unique.

The cover templates used by racovimge include svg elements taken from the following design collections: