TaigaBridge

An ACBL Convention Card Editor in LaTeX

Why another convention card editor?

One, because I can. Two, because the existing editors (from BridgeWinners, Merlin Vilhauer, and Chuck Tesler) have their little quirks, and this way I can have complete control over exactly where everything is on my card and how it looks.

Yes, mine has its own quirks too — most importantly, since it is TeX-based, it is not a WYSIWYG editor. I provide a template with a true/false toggle for whether you want each checkbox filled in, and a slot for inserting text onto every blank line of the card. When you compile your .tex file, you get a full-color PDF (example) of your filled-out card.

Installing grbcce

The source code is in two parts. The style file, grbcce.sty, needs to be downloaded and installed like any other LaTeX package. (You can either save it into its own folder, ~/tex/latex/grbcce or ~/localtexmf/tex/latex/grbcce, or save it into the same folder as my grbbridge package if you have already installed that.)

The template file, latex_cc_template.tex, can be saved wherever you want your final document to appear and opened in the LaTeX editor of your choice. (I use MiKTeX 2.9 and TeXnicCenter but you can use whatever you'd like.)

The blank template file will compile to look like this (compare to the ACBL's official blank card if you wish.) You can also see a filled-out example card and the source that produces it.

The package has several dependencies:

• TikZ, part of pgf, to draw the convention card;
• txfonts, to supply the filled-in heart and diamond symbols instead of the LaTeX-default hollow suit symbols;
• microtype, to adjust the tracking (spacing between letters) of the text to make it match the ACBL template's proportions;
• The Helvetica typeface;
• ifthen to handle the boolean flags that turn the checkboxes on and off, and
• xstring to simplify how the opening lead section is presented.

Version history of 'grbcce':

• 1.0 - initial creation, 17 December 2017.