pieter-degroote/UltimateKEYS

PDF or image cheat sheet?

zyxir opened this issue · 7 comments

zyxir commented

Hello Pieter, I'm currently actively using UltimateKEYS as my daily keyboard layout and eager to do something to make it better.

I want to make a cheat sheet for UltimateKEYS, just like that of EurKEY. You can see it here: EurKEY cheatsheet

I want to make this cheat sheet in PDF format so that it could be easily printed. Also there could be a JPG or PNG version so that I can use it as my desktop wallpaper.

The documentation in your website has two problems. First it's too long, and second the fonts are in a mess. Using a nicely composed PDF or image format could solve this.

So in order to make this cheat sheet, what tools can I use? Are there any recommendations? Thank you!

At this moment, I have updated the website (quite a lot...) to put everything there in a more structured way.

Because the whole documentation is very detailed, I think that it might be (very) difficult to put it on one or two pages.

In the past, I started creating the documentation from the MSKLC source files by using Notepad++.
To create a proper layout image, I used KbdEdit (which I paid a license for). As follows, I created a PDF with it, opened it with my web browser, cut out the needed layout part and saved it as PNG.

It is important to perform that process because that original PDF (from KbdEdit) also shows the personal license information at the bottom, which I do not want to publish...

As far as I see, I do not know which tools were exactly used to create the EurKEY cheat sheet. It might well have been a program like GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop).

Further on, a lot of programs, like LibreOffice and IrfanView/XnView allow you to save as PDF...

Considering that during the past year, I was (perhaps) the only one who used UltimateKEYS, I have not put so much effort in creating some concise documentation yet.
Maybe, the keyboard layout images can converted (see attached PDFs).

UltimateKEYS - Keyboard Layout Image.pdf
(from the PNG file)

UltimateKEYS SW - Keyboard Layout Image.pdf
(from the PNG file)

zyxir commented

Thank you for your software recommendations!

I know how to turn a picture or webpage into a PDF, and what I really meant is something compact enough, to show both the layout (the keyboard layout diagram) and those symbols that can only be typed with a dead key.

I'll try to make such a picture of cheat sheet with GIMP (which I've been using for a while) and KbdEdit free demo version, with a monochrome Unicode font.

At this moment, I am working with :

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/

I am going to use this tool, as it also creates keyboard layout images :

UltimateKEYS image

UltimateKEYS SW image

The website has now been updated with the new layout images as they are made by the open-source tool.

zyxir commented

Haha it's funny because I was just trying Keyboard-Layout-Editor the moment before I created this issue. I think the layout created by Keyboard-Layout-Editor is not as clear and pretty as the one you made with KbdEdit, and that was the reason I asked for software recommendations.

If you think Keyboard-Layout-Editor is okay then it's okay. I've decided that I am going to make a pdf cheat sheet with LaTeX, and hope you will love it.

Well, I think (and believe) that it should be better to use open-source tools (where possible).
I have now published the website and its contents (including documentation) under the GNU Free Documentation License (Version 1.3).
In a certain way, I began testing Keyboard-Layout-Editor yesterday and I found out how I could get it in shape (finally).
As for now, the whole project has moved the new layout formatting and some improvements to the images have also been made.