README

Library to easily create working grids and export them as PDF

This library works with SVG. If you are looking for resources about chinese characters, strokes as svg, you might want to take a look at Make Me A Hanzi.

Installation

You can install this library using composer.

$ composer require eliepse/working-grid-pdf

Usage

The most basic way of using this library would be like the following. You can see a more complete exemple in the public directory.

use Eliepse\WorkingGrid\Character;
use Eliepse\WorkingGrid\Elements\Word;
use Eliepse\WorkingGrid\Template\Examples\DefaultTemplate;
use Eliepse\WorkingGrid\WorkingGrid;

// Use the static method to generate pdf 
// passing a template and an array of words
WorkingGrid::inlinePrint(
    new DefaultTemplate, 
    [
        new Word([new Character("中", [strokes data here])]),
        new Word([new Character("国", [...])]),
        new Word([
            new Character("中", [...]),
            new Character("国", [...])
        ])
    ]
);

Words, characters and strokes data

Words

This libray support multi-characters words. To normalize data, pass, you must instanciate your Word class with Drawable elements. The Character class is a ready-to-use Drawable.

Characters

Character class takes two parameters: the character as a string and the strokes of this character. To draw the character, this library uses SVG data. Pass strokes data as an array. If you want to show a help to draw the characters in the right order, order the array as well. Using this class is not required, you can create your own but it must implement the Drawable interface.

An exemple of an array of strokes for the character 四:

[
    "M 326 667 Q 283 663 312 640 [...] Q 420 673 326 667 Z",
    "M 329 421 Q 304 417 332 392 [...] Q 435 441 329 421 Z",
    "M 130 165 Q 102 162 122 139 [...] Q 643 210 130 165 Z"
]

To see more exemples data, check the content of the /samples/strokes folder where some characters are stored in JSON. Take a look at Make Me A Hanzi to get more open source strokes data !

Templates

In order to provide flexibility and customization, this library use a system of templates. To make a custom working grid, create a class that extends Template, or use predifiened examples.

class MyTemplate extends Template
{
    // You can override parameters here, 
    // see configuration chapter of this file
}

Custom header and footer

When creating a template, you can implements CustomizableHeader and CustomizableFooter in order to customize the header and footer. The methods include a access to the instance of mPDF used to render the document, and an PageInfo object with information of the current drawn page.

Extras

Strokes order

Too print a help that show the strokes order, simply implement the WithDrawingTutorial interface to your template.

Pinyin

If you want to show the pinyin of caracters, implement the WithPinyin interface to your template.

Configuration

You can use differents properties to customize your document. All are accessible in the template and some are accessible as template constructor's parameters.

Property	Type	Description
title	string	The title of the document.
columns_amount	integer	The number of cells (columns) per line, influence the size of cells.
model_amount	integer	The number of cells that keep a light gray character as a helping model.
paddings	array	Set the padding of pages in millimeters. Formated as CSS : top, right, bottom, left.
header_height	float	Set the header height in millimeters.
footer_height	float	Set the footer height in millimeters.
stroke_color	float	Set the color of the first drawn character.
model_color	string	Set the color the characters dranw as models.
grid_color	string	Set the color of the grid.
guide_color	string	Set the color of guide strokes (background).

Features

Property	Type	Description
tutorial_height	float	The size, in millimeters, of box that shows a help for drawing strokes. Relative to the cell size when set to 0.

Built With

mPDF: PHP library generating PDF files from UTF-8 encoded HTML
Make Me A Hanzi: Free, open-source Chinese character data
Source Han Sans: a typeface from Adobe
Ideohint Template for Source Han Sans: A (hinted!) version of Source Han Sans

eliepse / working-grid-pdf

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