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Revision as of 20:34, 22 March 2026 by Thebys (talk | contribs) (Change preformatted to code blocks.)

QR codes

Example of a real label used in Base48.

Thebys' Brother printer can print monochrome PNG files of height 128px.

Creating the PNG files

One way to do it is with this simple Perl script:

use GD::Barcode::QRcode;
use GD;

use strict;
use warnings;

my $large = '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation/LiberationSans-Regular.ttf';
my $narrow = '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation/LiberationSansNarrow-Regular.ttf';

my ($img, $w, $h);

sub text
{
	my $font = shift;
	if ($img) {
		$img->stringFT(-1,$font,@_) or die "$font: $@: $!";
	} else {
		my @bounds = GD::Image->stringFT(-1,$font,@_) or die "$font: $@: $!";
		my $nw = $bounds[2] + 16;
		$w = $nw if $nw > $w;
	}
}

sub render
{
	my $t = shift;
	my $title = shift;
	my $text = shift;
	my $url = shift // $text;
	my $m = 3;

	$img = undef;
	$h = $t;
	$w = $h;

	# Sizing first
	if ($t == 76) {
		text($narrow,32,0,$h+8,0, $text);
	} else {
		text($large,48,0,$h+8,0, $title);
		text($narrow,24,0,$h+8,0, $text);
	}

	# Actual rendering
	$img = GD::Image->new($w,$h);
	my $qr = GD::Barcode::QRcode->new($url)->plot(Height => $h);
	$img->copyResized($qr, 0, 0, $m, $m, $img->height, $img->height, $qr->width-2*$m, $qr->height-2*$m);

	if ($t == 76) {
		text($narrow,32,0,$img->height+8, $img->height-24, $text);
	} else {
		text($large,48,0,$img->height+8, 64, $title);
		text($narrow,24,0,$img->height+8, $img->height-16, $text);
	}

	return $img;
}

sub do_one
{
	my $title = shift;
	my $str = shift // $title;

	open my $big, ">$str.png" or die "$str.png: $!";
	print $big render (128, $title, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://wiki.base48.cz/wiki/$str">https://wiki.base48.cz/wiki/$str</a>")->png;

	open my $small, ">small-$str.png" or die "$str.png: $!";
	print $small render (76, $title, "/wiki/$str", "<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://wiki.base48.cz/wiki/$str">https://wiki.base48.cz/wiki/$str</a>")->png;
}

do_one('Electro Lab', 'Electro_lab');
do_one('RGB LED Panel', 'Buse_RGB_LED_Panel');
do_one('3D Printers', '3D_printing_lab');
do_one('C64', 'C64');
do_one('Color Jet Printer', 'Color_Jet_Printer');
do_one('CNC', 'CNC');
do_one('Metal Workshop', 'Metal_workshop');
do_one('Woodworking', 'Woodworking');
do_one('Turtle Drawing Plotter', 'PlotBot');
do_one('Bike Repair Corner', 'Bike_corner');
do_one('Library', 'Library');
do_one('Output Buffer', 'OutputBuffer');
do_one('Making QR labels', 'Labels#QR_codes');
do_one('Bongs', 'Bongs#Bongo');
do_one('Bong Cleaning Tools', 'Bongs#Maintenance');

Printing them out:

Use this tool: https://git.familie-radermacher.ch/linux/ptouch-print.git

# perl makeqr.pl
# ./ptouch-print --image=Library.png

Minimize waste by chaining multiple labels:

# ./ptouch-print --image=CNC.png --chain 
# ./ptouch-print --image=Library.png --precut --chain 
# ./ptouch-print --image=OutputBuffer.png --precut