A python script to turn cewe photobooks into pdf documents. The CEWE pdf export is achieved by interpreting the mcf xml-files and compiling a pdf document which looks like the cewe photo book.
There are many unsupported options, so an exact conversion cannot be guaranteed. The script is mostly based on reverse-engineering and guessing. It is not meeting any official specifications. So don't be surprised if one or another feature doesn't work. However, improvements are always appreciated.
You will need underlying Cairographics (https://www.cairographics.org/) support installed on your machine for the handling of clip art. How you get this will depend on your platform, but if you have the GTK+ toolkit installed (https://www.gtk.org/docs/installations/) that should do it. An alternative way to get Cairo installed is to use vcpkg (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/vcpkg/get_started/overview and https://vcpkg.io/en/). For Windows users just seeking a 'cairo.dll' to add to %WINDIR%\System32, take a look at this project for binary releases.
tags: mcf2pdf, mcf_to_pdf, CEWE Fotobuch als pdf speichern, Fotobuch nach pdf exportieren, cewe Fotobuch pdf, mcf in pdf umwandeln, aus CEW-Fotobuch ein pdf machen, cewe Fotobuch pdf
Download or clone this cewe2pdf repository into a folder of your choice.
The easiest way to start this Python script, is to install the latest python version. Then from the start-menu open your python promt and install the dependencies
pip install packages lxml reportlab pillow pillow_heif cairosvg fonttools pyyaml
If you have installed the Anaconda Python distribution, there is one catch:
Currently, there is a problem with the pillow image library in Anaconda, that prevents it from loading .webp images on Windows.
This will give the error:
"image file could not be identified because WEBP support not installed".
To fix this, you can do the following steps.
Press Windows Start button and start the "Anaconda prompt"
Make sure you have all the dependencies installed by executing:
conda install lxml
conda uninstall reportlab pillow
pip install reportlab pillow fonttools pyyaml
There does not appear to be a "binaries only" installation for GTK+ or Cairographics, which means you'll have to build it yourself.
Go to the directory where cewe2pdf is installed and create a text file there with filename cewe_folder.txt
and use a text editor to write the installation directory of the CEWE software into the text file.
Example
if you have the software branded for the company DM, called "dm-Fotowelt", then the file cewe_folder.txt should contain:
C:\Program Files\dm\dm-Fotowelt\dm-Fotowelt.exe
Save the file and close it.
Alternatively - indeed, preferably, if you want full functionality - you can move on to more extensive configuration by using cewe2pdf.ini instead of cewe_folder.txt. Here you can specify the location of the cewe folder, provide a comma separated list of locations for additional background images and define how the additional fonts you have specified (see below) are organised into families so that bold and italic texts are shown correctly.
The contents can, for example, be of the form:
[DEFAULT]
cewe_folder = C:\Program Files\Elkjop fotoservice_6.3\elkjop fotoservice
# Define font families where the defaults don't work properly. Take a good look
# at the full font diagnostics if you suspect issues with the choice of fonts
fontFamilies =
FranklinGothic,FranklinGothic,FranklinGothic Medium,Franklin Gothic Book Italic,FranklinGothic Medium Italic
# Define the output resolutions, the default 300 is ok for printing, 150 for screen display only
pdfImageResolution = 150
pdfBackgroundResolution = 150
# Define line scale (line spacing, essentially) for fonts where the default 1.1 (110%) is not acceptable
fontLineScales =
Crafty Girls: 1.43
# These possibilities are seldom needed in the latest versions of the program
#extraBackgroundFolders =
# ${PROGRAMDATA}/hps/${KEYACCOUNT}/addons/447/backgrounds/v1/backgrounds
# tests/Resources/photofun/backgrounds
#extraClipArts =
# 63488, ${LOCALAPPDATA}/CEWE/hps/${KEYACCOUNT}/photofun/decorations/63488/rect_cream/rect_cream.clp
# 121285, ${LOCALAPPDATA}/CEWE/hps/${KEYACCOUNT}/photofun/decorations/121285/12089-clip-gold-gd/12089-clip-gold-gd.clp
#passepartoutFolders=${PROGRAMDATA}/hps
# Define the numbers of logging messages of various levels that are "usual" for your
# installation. This allows the program to tell you if there are differences in a run
# and therefore give you a hint that something needs your attention.
#expectedLoggingMessageCounts =
# cewe2pdf.config: WARNING[32], INFO[669]
# root: ERROR[2], WARNING[4], INFO[38]
Download the repository into a folder of your choice.
Install the packages listed in requirements.txt into a Python environment.
Install cairo, for example using the brew package manager. If you dont have brewinstalled, please do so https://brew.sh/. Then run
brew install cairo
as shown here https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/cairo.
Follow the steps outlined for Linux on linking to the software (most likely it will be installed in /Applications) and creating the font file. The standard directory for fonts on MacOS is ~/Library/Fonts/.
Download the repository into a folder of your choice.
Ensure the python dependencies are installed.
On Fedora :
sudo dnf install python3-lxml python3-reportlab python-cairosvg fonttools python3-pyyaml
On Debian:
sudo apt install python3-cairosvg python3-fonttools python3-lxml python3-packaging python3-pillow python3-reportlab python3-yaml
Define the CEWE path (the directory where your CEWE album software is installed. You can recognize it by the many .so files and some subdirs like Resources). Put this directory name into a file named cewe_folder.txt.
Example with my CEWE FOTOWELT is installed in /home/username/CEWE/CEWE FOTOWELT/ :
echo "/home/username/CEWE/CEWE FOTOWELT/" > cewe_folder.txt
Example with my CEWE software in /opt/CEWE :
echo "/opt/CEWE" > cewe_folder.txt
Create another text file called additional_fonts.txt.
This can be left empty, but to get the correct fonts in the pdf you should specify them here.
Add single font files or whole directories with .ttf files in it:
Windows font file and directory paths:
C:\Windows\Fonts\BOD_R.TTF
C:\Windows\Fonts\
Example for linux font file and directory paths:
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/lato/Lato-Heavy.ttf
/home/myusername/.local/share/fonts/
This will create an empty file :
touch additional_fonts.txt
If your CEWE software uses .xmcf files for your projects, you can simply still use this. The .xmcf file format is just an archive of the *.mcf file, the <album>_mcf-Dateien folder and a few other files. Right click the .xmcf file and your os should give you an open to open the archive. Copy the relevant files out of it, and you should be all set for the next steps.
If your CEWE software uses .mcfx files for your projects, you can specify the file name directly on the command line. The .mcfx file format is actually an sql database containing an *.mcf file and the related image files. cewe2pdf will create a temporary directory, unpack the the .mcfx there, process the result, and then delete the temporary directory again
At this point, you should have these files in your current directory :
cewe2pdf.pycewe2pdf.ini(or the oldercewe_folder.txt)additional_fonts.txt- your
*.mcfor.mcfxalbum file- a directory named
<album>_mcf-Dateinif you are using*.mcf
- a directory named
Run cewe2pdf.py with the name of your album file and an equivalent pdf file will be created beside the album file.
Example:
python cewe2pdf.py c:\path\to\my\files\my_nice_fotobook.mcf
currently cewe2pdf supports the following options. They are shown if you run
python cewe2pdf.py --help
usage: cewe2pdf.py [-h] [--keepDoublePages] [--pages PAGES] [--tmp-dir MCFXTMPDIR] [--appdata-dir APPDATADIR]
[inputFile]
Convert a photo-book from .mcf/.mcfx file format to .pdf
positional arguments:
inputFile Just one mcf(x) input file must be specified (default: None)
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--keepDoublePages Each page in the .pdf will be a double-sided page, instead of a normal single page. (default:
False)
--pages PAGES Page numbers to render, e.g. 1,2,4-9 (default: None)
--tmp-dir MCFXTMPDIR Directory for .mcfx file extraction (default: None)
--appdata-dir APPDATADIR
Directory for persistent app data, eg ttf fonts converted from otf fonts (default: None)
Example:
python cewe2pdf.py c:\path\to\my\files\my_nice_fotobook.mcf
To create a stand-alone compiled package, you can use
pip install pyinstaller
pyinstaller cewe2pdf.py --onefile
To run the unit-test you also need to install
pip install pytest pikepdf
You can then call pytest from the working directory or use the runAllTests.py file.