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Speed Card Editing

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EpicGollum1499
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I'm designing a card game, and I'm wondering if there's a really good way/program that lets you create/change the information on lots of cards quickly.

I want to make a master card, fill in some numbers and text in a form/spreadsheet, and instantly have all of the card files I need.

Should I use a spreadsheet and a NaNdeck script? I know gimp has a scripting language, but I'm definitely not a programmer. Does anybody know of a good script/free program/feature in inkscape/gimp/nandeck that I can use?

Thanks!

Squinshee
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I'm of no help here (sorry)

I'm of no help here (sorry) but I too would really like to know if there's something simple like that out there.

truekid games
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Excel is probably the

Excel is probably the "easiest" to do that with- form the cards using cells, then have each of the cells point to the relevant information elsewhere.

For example, if on one sheet you have the value for "sunshine" in cell A1 and the value for "elves" in cell B25, and you want your "sunshine elf" value to have a value of both of those attributes added together, you'd put =A1+B25 in the appropriate cell on all your sunshine elves. If you later decide you want all elves to be worth 1 less, you just lower the value in A1.

You can do this with values, text, and to a slightly more finicky extent, with pictures. The initial setup takes some time (the same as filling in info on any set of cards, generally), but making changes would be much faster. The benefits are that it costs nothing (with Open Office), and that as long as what I said in the prior paragraph makes sense to you, there is nothing to learn.

Edit to add:
Here's a simplified example- http://truekidgames.com/AVZ_card_example.xls
I made the rows and column heights/widths add up to appropriate card size (2.5" x 3.5") and did some rudimentary formatting. If you change the names or the values in the yellow cells, all the related cells in the cards adjust.

whoshim
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nanDECK

nanDECK is exactly what you are looking for. You use excel for the card info, and link it to your nanDECK file. It takes a little learning, but not much, and the developer is very helpful.

http://www.nand.it/nandeck/

truekid games
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I feel you understate the

I feel you understate the amount of learning/messing around with stuff that nandeck requires. Being so heavily script-based is a non-trivial thing. But to each his own.

Zag24
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nanDECK!

I'll second the support for nanDECK. It takes a while to work through it, but it is really powerful and really worth it.

larienna
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There is also the magic the

There is also the magic the gathering editor if the premade templates can suit your needs. Else making your own template demands more work. Might be doable only when you have a solid game and you know you are going to release a lot of cards since it's a CCG, LCG, etc.

Else I use Inkscape. Make a template file of 9 cards, then duplicate the file and just change the text on the cards. For early prototype, it works fine. It depends on the amount of cards you need to do.

McTeddy
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Joined: 11/19/2012
Nandeck. It takes time to

Nandeck. It takes time to learn but it's the single best tool I've used for making prototype cards.

You edit the card data in excel and then import the file into nan-deck. It'll create and format the cards based on your design.

Even better, the last version I used had replaced ALOT of the scripting with graphical interfaces. While it's far from perfect at this point, it'll likely be easier for the average joe to learn.

My only warning is that because they are updating to a graphical interface... things are iffy. I've had occasional bugs, and old help files aren't useful anymore. Still better than other tools I've used, but annoying.
But I expect it'll be back to normal within a few releases.

Despot9
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Joined: 07/26/2008
There is a way to import data

There is a way to import data from excel or a comma separated database into inDesign. You need to basically create a template and link the database to the individual parts. You can even name images in a cell and get it to link in.

nand
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McTeddy wrote:Nandeck. It

McTeddy wrote:
Nandeck. It takes time to learn but it's the single best tool I've used for making prototype cards.

Thanks for the appreciations ;-)

McTeddy wrote:
only warning is that because they are updating to a graphical interface... things are iffy. I've had occasional bugs, and old help files aren't useful anymore. Still better than other tools I've used, but annoying.
But I expect it'll be back to normal within a few releases.

My goal is to keep both methods (script and visual) working; if you have spotted some bug, please let me know.

Thanks.

Nand

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