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How Do You Make a Label?


Atari Dogs

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I have ordered my eprom programmer, ordered my board and eprom from AtariAge, and have a cartridge that I am going to put my hack in. Now I need help in making a label.

 

How do you make a label? This part of computers is a little after my time. I can work in Excel and Word 10 hours a day, but when it comes to doing anything graphically, I have absolutely no clue where to start. What type of application do you even use? I have seen a discussion on where to buy the lable paper, but I have not seen anything on how to make a label. Can anyone help?

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Any help? :(

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I've made several labels for my own hacks, and a few submissions to the Backfire label contest some time ago.

 

My favorite application for this purpose is Ulead PhotoImpact, I've got a copy of version 7, although I think there have been several updates since. Download a demo from www.ulead.com. There are lots of free drag'n'drop graphics you can add to your labels, and it's much easier to use than Photoshop for a beginner.

 

For my personal labels, I just use high quality photo paper and glue it to the cartridge with adhesive. Make the front label 1650x2025 pixels, and the end label 1650 x 338 pixels. When you print the labels, make the end label 2 3/4" wide by 9/16" high, and the front label 2 3/4" wide by 3 3/8" high. The Atari fonts can be downloaded here at AtariAge: http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/Atar...l?SystemID=2600.

 

Good Luck!

 

AM

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've made alot fo labels for the 2600 and all I use is MS Paint and they look pretty damn good I have to say. You don't always have to go big. Try scanning a label and reworking the entire label. fill in colors where you want and then so on. Retype the copyright stuff with your own. The eye drop is your best friend in Paint trust me.

 

Just Another Option,

 

Shawn Sr.

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  • 3 months later...

Here is the link for blank labels you can buy.

 

http://www.8bitclassics.com/product_info.p...products_id=510

 

On the page, I have a PDF how to go ahead and make your label with Photoshop. It will also work with others if you are more familiar with Paint Shop Pro or ?

 

To print them, I have selected to use Avery Label software which is free to use and allows you to print off one label at a time. A user has also printed using Microsoft Publisher.

 

Currently only have in stock laser printer labels, inkjet's will be ordered in the near future. Main reason I ordered laser labels first was because the toner won't smear when wet like inkjet, so I believe it is a little better quality.

 

Corey

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I use the entire Adobe Creative Suite 2.0. With Marble Craze I only used Illustrator, but these days I use a mix. My submission for Start-O-Gems used Illustrator and InDesign, but I did have a label for Go Fish that I did in Photoshop. As a graphic designer these are the only programs I trust to work in consistently, but low-tech works fine. When I first started learning graphic design, we used a program similar to MS Paint on Atari computers!

 

Daryl

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I do a bunch of the labels for AtariAge (David Exton), and I use Photoshop (which is a pretty full featured package, though you can just use the tools you need and not get bewildered by the rest), Illustrator for logos and to compose a lot of the layout (although that's more for the manual). I never use Illustrator for actual artwork, I hate doing vector based art and Illustrator is a bugger for crashing as well.

 

I've just got into Corel Paint also, but that's more useful to me as I have a traditional paint background, so it lets me bring a lot of that stuff into the 'digital realm' - shit, did I just say digital realm? shoot me, please.

 

Whatever package you use, you NEED a Wacom tablet. You can't paint or draw with a mouse. They do a pretty cheap one, the Graphire, which works very well (I managed to do everything up to Star Fire on an old iMac with a very small graphire tablet).

 

No idea about actually making them, Albert does all that :)

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  • 5 months later...

You'd be able to do a rudimentary label, with the text and some stock clip art (or a screenshot), using PowerPoint. Draw a box the size of your label, then just be sure to keep all of your elements inside that box, and then you can print it like you normally would.

 

You'd be able to do better labels than the original publishers did with QuarkXPress, Photoshop, and Illustrator at your disposal, but the learning curve is pretty steep too--I took a 3-credit hour college class that taught the fundamentals of those three, and another 3-credit hour class the next semester on QuarkXPress. But PowerPoint can do an acceptable job, or even a head-turning job with some practice, and it's probably something you already have.

 

As Corey said, laser-printed labels are less likely to smear but they're also less likely to fade over time. If you don't have a color laser printer, either take your file or an inkjet printout to a copy shop and have them laser copy or print it onto the labels for you.

Edited by Dave Farquhar
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