Greetings.

Does anybody happen to know about a package that will make a button,
the kind you would put into a Badg-a-Minit press and then pin to your
shirt?

I have a basic "blank" that will print four of them using tikz, but
it only allows one line of text, I have to size the text myself,
and I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing.

My ideal goal would be "take this blob of text, format it as large as
you can to fit inside a circle with radius x inches" (in my case, x=0.95
but I may have some smaller ones too somewere) ... but I have a feeling
I'm asking for way too much.

I think I saw something like this (text formatted in a circle), but if
I recall correctly, it was a lot of text, small font size in a big circle,
and manually sized to meet the required widths.

Anyway, if anybody has ideas or pointers, I'm all eyes.

Thanks.

--hymie! https://nasalinux.net/~hymie hymie@nasalinux.net

In article <slrnuu22ue.ukp.hymie@nasalinux.net>,
hymie! <hymie@nasalinux.net> wrote:
>Greetings.
>
>Does anybody happen to know about a package that will make a button,
>the kind you would put into a Badg-a-Minit press and then pin to your
>shirt?
>
>I have a basic "blank" that will print four of them using tikz, but
>it only allows one line of text, I have to size the text myself,
>and I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing.
>
>My ideal goal would be "take this blob of text, format it as large as
>you can to fit inside a circle with radius x inches" (in my case, x=0.95
>but I may have some smaller ones too somewere) ... but I have a feeling
>I'm asking for way too much.
>
>I think I saw something like this (text formatted in a circle), but if
>I recall correctly, it was a lot of text, small font size in a big circle,
>and manually sized to meet the required widths.
>
>Anyway, if anybody has ideas or pointers, I'm all eyes.
>
>Thanks.
>
>--hymie! https://nasalinux.net/~hymie hymie@nasalinux.net

If memory serves, DEK has an example of this in the TeXbook. for one fixed font
size. The example defined a circular \parshape if I recall correctly, and then
TeX does the rest. I don't recall anything about varying the font size in
there, but the paragraph shape at least reduuces the compllexity of the
problem a bit.

-Greg
--
Greg Vilardi |Director, Portal Eng. E-mail:vilardi@panix.com
USnail: 354 Indian Head Rd |Vormittag Associates, Inc. Home:(631)864-1310
Commack, NY 11725 |Ronkonkoma, NY 11779 Cell:(631)627-1448
sig Version 0.80 I thought, I wrote, I posted.

In article <slrnuu22ue.ukp.hymie@nasalinux.net>, hymie@nasalinux.net
says...
>
> Greetings.
>
> Does anybody happen to know about a package that will make a button,
> the kind you would put into a Badg-a-Minit press and then pin to your
> shirt?

Probably more a job for a graphics design package than for TeX. For
example Windows Paint, xfig or the like.

Just for posterity ...

I didn't come up with a method to do it automatically, but this method
will work with trial-and-error

The "printme" variable will turn on a smaller circle that approximates
where the text needs to fit ... that can be turned off when you actually
print it out.

\usepackage{tikz}

%\def\printme{1}

\newcommand{\makebutton}[4]{
\node[draw,circle,minimum size=3.0in,inner sep=0pt]
at (#1,#2) {\textit { \textbf {
\fontsize{#3}{#3}\selectfont
#4
}}};
\ifdefined\printme
\else
\draw (#1,#2) circle(1.125in) ;
\fi
}

\makebutton{0}{0}{30}
{\begin{tabular}{c}Please\\don\kern-0.10em 't ask me\\about NASA\\today\end{tabular}}

--hymie! https://nasalinux.net/~hymie hymie@nasalinux.net

In our last episode, the evil Dr. Lacto had captured our hero,
hymie! <hymie@nasalinux.net>, who said:
> Greetings.
>
> Does anybody happen to know about a package that will make a button,
> the kind you would put into a Badg-a-Minit press and then pin to your
> shirt?
>
> I have a basic "blank" that will print four of them using tikz, but
> it only allows one line of text, I have to size the text myself,
> and I'm not going to pretend that I know what I'm doing.
>
> My ideal goal would be "take this blob of text, format it as large as
> you can to fit inside a circle with radius x inches" (in my case, x=0.95
> but I may have some smaller ones too somewere) ... but I have a feeling
> I'm asking for way too much.
>
> I think I saw something like this (text formatted in a circle), but if
> I recall correctly, it was a lot of text, small font size in a big circle,
> and manually sized to meet the required widths.
>
> Anyway, if anybody has ideas or pointers, I'm all eyes.