Playing Card mock-up technique

[Jason Morningstar]

I just read this as an aside on, of all places, an information architecture Website:

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/understanding_powerpoint_special_deliverable_5.php

Making a Deck of Cards

PowerPoint may have its faults, but there's no better way to make a deck of cards quickly. Here's a trick I've used for years to prepare for card-sorting exercises.

Open Microsoft Word. Yeah, you'll have to use both evil applications.

In the View menu, select Outline.

Type the list of terms into your outline. Be sure that each term is assigned the Heading 1 style. If you'd like to include other elements on your cards (a term's definition, for example) add them as sub-items under the term. Those sub-items will be assigned styles Heading2, Heading3, and so, depending on their position in the hierarchy. Ultimately, each Heading 1 term will appear as a card, and any associated lower-level headings will appear as items on that card. Do not use any other styles for items on the cards. Microsoft Word can only export Heading styles to PowerPoint.

Now for the tricky part: Once you're done with your term list, from the File menu, go to Send To and select Microsoft PowerPoint from the sub-menu.

The system does the rest! PowerPoint will open a new presentation file and place each of your terms on a separate slide*. If you want to adjust the layout of the cards, select Master > Slide Master from the View menu. You can move the main heading text field into the center of the page, increase the font size, etc. Changes to the Master Slide will be reflected on all the cards. To turn them into cards, print several slides on a page. Nine slides to a page works best, though sixteen works well, too.

Now all that's left is to track down the paper cutter in the Marketing department!

* Note: The Send To feature is limited to about 200 terms. If you need more cards, simply cut-and-paste your Word outline into your PowerPoint outline.

I have not tried this but it seemed handy and maybe useful,

--Jason

[Veritas Games]

I'll stick to my method.

Type up the text in Microsoft Access.  Do a single layout in Serif Page Plus 10.  Merge them.

This lays out the text, places images, dynamically creates icons, creates drop shadows and other font effects, etc.

Then you just tweak the layout a little bit if you want to change the way the text is placed on the layout.

You can produce 1000s of cards this way pretty easily.

[daMoose_Neo]

Access is a great tool.
Personally, I just prefer text previews, in which case Access's Report function does a great job, converts the entire database to the form, just click, print, and cut.

[Veritas Games]

Access is a great tool.
Personally, I just prefer text previews, in which case Access's Report function does a great job, converts the entire database to the form, just click, print, and cut.

The problem with doing the layout in Access is that everything gets "bolted down", Nate.  So that, if for a specific card, centering the text looks better than left justifying it (let's say it's a 4 word card instead of a paragraph), that you can't make those "on the fly" decisions as easily.  It also doesn't do as many cool built-in typographic effects as Page Plus 10 (I can do all sorts of drop shadow and fill techniques automatically).

[Josh Roby]

How much actual detail can you get through this method?  I don't see what advantage this has over using Illustrator and/or InDesign.  Or is the answer "It doesn't cost hundreds of dollars"?

[Jason Morningstar]

As I said I have not tested it. 

"It does not cost hundred's of dollars" may be viable if you have the Office suite, but then you'd also have Access as noted previously as well. 

Obivously InDesign is a much better choice for the final product, but for quick and dirty cards, I thought this might be a solution.  I was surprised to see some IA guy talking about it and thought I'd share.

--Jason

[Eric Provost]

As no one else seemed bothered to say it, thanks for sharing this with us Jason.  It may or may not be the best method for everyone, but it is a different method to consider.  I wish I had a copy of Power Point to try it out with.

-Eric

[talysman]

As no one else seemed bothered to say it, thanks for sharing this with us Jason.  It may or may not be the best method for everyone, but it is a different method to consider.  I wish I had a copy of Power Point to try it out with.

OpenOffice.org can do the same thing, it turns out; I just tested it. there doesn't seem to be an automatic outline mode (or at least I haven't found it yet,) so what you would do is type up your headings, apply the Heading 1 style to each, and then send the document to Impress in one of two ways:

• If a text document contains headings formatted with the Heading Paragraph Style, choose File - Send - Outline to Presentation. A new presentation document is created, which contains the headings as an outline.
• If you want to transfer each heading together with its accompanying paragraphs, select the File - Send - AutoAbstract to Presentation command. You must have formatted the headings with a corresponding Paragraph Style to be able to see this command.

"free" is always a nice option to have.

[Veritas Games]

How much actual detail can you get through this method?  I don't see what advantage this has over using Illustrator and/or InDesign.  Or is the answer "It doesn't cost hundreds of dollars"?

My method, at least, allows you to automatically make changes on hundreds of cards simultaneously without doing all the work from scratch.  It's partially automated, with just a little bit of hand tweaking per card.  Depending on the complexity of your card design there may be zero hand tweaking of cards with the Access to Page Plus 10 strategy.

Access can be expensive, but it's not entirely necessary.  You can use my technique with a variety of database back ends.

[Mike Holmes]

To follow up, what I then do is to put the text on cards that I purchase for cheap at conventions. I go to the discount tables, and find the box of cards that has the most in it for the cheapest. You can easily get down to half a cent a card or less. Yeah, I know you can probably order stock from a company for cheaper (couldn't say for sure), but since I'm at conventions this is pretty cheap.

I also purchase blank INWO cards when I find them so I can just write on the stock directly. A fun way to make a game somewhat  like the "structured design" idea, is to just to take hand of blank cards, and write them up as you play a mock game. It's interesting to see what comes up.

No, I've never completed a CCG desig. But I do think that these techniques have helped.

Mike

[Graham W]

I imagine lots of you know this already, but I thought it might be useful to share.

Magician's supply stores sell packs of playing cards with blank faces. (And also packs which are blank on both sides). They're relatively cheap: I got a pack for five pounds from Davenports in London. And a quick internet search shows they're selling for about seven dollars in the States.

They're incredibly useful if you want to mock up a single deck to see how a game plays. The advantage of playing cards over bits of card is that they have a finish on them, so they shuffle and deal properly, and you can hold them in a hand better.

CD writer pens are particularly good for writing on them: you need something permanent and non-smudging.

In any case, hope that's useful.

Graham

[Veritas Games]

They're incredibly useful if you want to mock up a single deck to see how a game plays. The advantage of playing cards over bits of card is that they have a finish on them, so they shuffle and deal properly, and you can hold them in a hand better.

Actually any stock of 65 pounds plus (and certainly 110 pound stock) is just fine if you put it in card sleeves.  Heck, if you put other cards into the sleeves, then you can even slide in pieces of paper if you want.  Card sleeves are the prototyper's friend.

[DavidBeoulve]

Where can I buy card-stock that I can print out my drawings onto and cut/punch/perferate out?

www.GamersGoneBad.com has some of my work.

Merry Christmas!