launchbox The Ultimate Magazine Experience

[Playnite_Is_Better]

All this information is very helpful, I've been using Comic Utility Belt since you suggested it the other day. It's way faster than ComicRack, I'm maybe half way through Electronic Gaming Monthly and I'm excited to use the CBR/CBZ tool today. The mindless opening and saving as PDF in Sumtra was driving me crazy. Thanks for taking the time to write out a small guide, I can tell you know more than I do when it comes to comics and magazines. I appreciate your help DerSchlachter

Edited July 15, 2023 by KingSlayer420

[Baggio]

Well, i never planned on adding magazines but now i have seen how you've done this i'm sold lol.

Thanks for the images you've done so far.  I think i'm going to have a go at doing all the artwork for The CVG magazines 😮

One thing i'm also going to look into is something simple to below and mass editing the clear logos just to add Issue 1, 2 ect to them.  Has anyone done anthing simialr to this before or have any idea on the best way to go about it?

 

[Playnite_Is_Better]

31 minutes ago, Baggio said:

Well, i never planned on adding magazines but now i have seen how you've done this i'm sold lol.

Thanks for the images you've done so far.  I think i'm going to have a go at doing all the artwork for The CVG magazines 😮

One thing i'm also going to look into is something simple to below and mass editing the clear logos just to add Issue 1, 2 ect to them.  Has anyone done anthing simialr to this before or have any idea on the best way to go about it?

 

Man that looks nice! Having one of those for each issue would be very cool. I am unsure of a way to bulk edit images like that, you could make a template in photoshop and then edit the text and then save them individually, of course that's the long way to do it lol. Might be a way to do it in bulk, sorry I can't be more help with that.

I haven't gotten to many computer mags yet, most are incomplete, or I haven't found a better source for them yet. CVG (Computer and Video Games) was one of those, I can't find a place that has most of them. That's a bigger set, 278 issues! Those take a while but are worth the effort, they look so much better once they are all added to lb with all the media.

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by KingSlayer420

[Baggio]

1 minute ago, KingSlayer420 said:

Man that looks nice! Having one of those for each issue would be very cool. I am unsure of a way to bulk edit images like that, you could make a template in photoshop and then individually edit the text and then save them, of course that's the long way to do it lol. Might be a way to do it in bulk, sorry I can't be more help with that.

I haven't gotten to many computer mags yet, most are incomplete, or I haven't found a better source for them yet. CVG (Computer and Video Games) was one of those, I can't find a place that has most of them. That's a bigger set, 278 issues! Those take a while but are worth the effort, they look so much better once they are all added to lb with all the media.

 

I think I can do it with imagemajick.  I did something similar with the spines I created for the Dreamcast but I forgot how I did it so will have to look into it again lol

I have a load of CVG mags but haven’t been though them yet to see how many’s missing so that’s my first task 👍

[Playnite_Is_Better]

3 minutes ago, Baggio said:

I think I can do it with imagemajick.  I did something similar with the spines I created for the Dreamcast but I forgot how I did it so will have to look into it again lol

I have a load of CVG mags but haven’t been though them yet to see how many’s missing so that’s my first task 👍

It would be awesome if you can pull that off with imagemajick, I personally would love to have some custom clear logos for my mags. I'm glad to see this thread sparking some interest into old gaming mags

[Baggio]

14 minutes ago, KingSlayer420 said:

It would be awesome if you can pull that off with imagemajick, I personally would love to have some custom clear logos for my mags. I'm glad to see this thread sparking some interest into old gaming mags

I read through issue 1 of the Sega Magazine last night and it's amazing going back in time and seeing them talking about newly introduced FMV in games and how they are talking about the graphics/sound on a 16-bit system compared to what we are seeing and hearing now 🤣

It's so nostalgic as well reading previews and reviews about games I forgot about and seeing old advertisements, mail order shops and what they have in stock, and the prices!!  I love it

[Playnite_Is_Better]

9 minutes ago, Baggio said:

I read through issue 1 of the Sega Magazine last night and it's amazing going back in time and seeing them talking about newly introduced FMV in games and how they are talking about the graphics/sound on a 16-bit system compared to what we are seeing and hearing now 🤣

It's so nostalgic as well reading previews and reviews about games I forgot about and seeing old advertisements, mail order shops and what they have in stock, and the prices!!  I love it

I also love that, seeing them talk about games that came out 15 years ago like its day 1, it never gets old! I also found alot of new gems to add to my LB collection through the magazines, reading the reviews and looking at all the screenshots. The game ads are my favorite, I can faintly remember certain ads and magazine covers which adds to my nostalgia overload. I've spent over a week adding all those to LB, I enjoyed every minute of it.

[Baggio]

I figured out how to mass edit the numbers on the clear logos.   I could have done them quicker than it took me to figure this out, but it will save a load of time in the future lol

Sega Magazine Clear Logo.zip

If you have any ideas on better styling or naming let me know and I'll redo them.  Then I'll do the rest.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Baggio

[Playnite_Is_Better]

29 minutes ago, Baggio said:

I figured out how to mass edit the numbers on the clear logos.   I could have done them quicker than it took me to figure this out, but it will save a load of time in the future lol

Sega Magazine Clear Logo.zip 4.18 MB · 0 downloads

If you have any ideas on better styling or naming let me know and I'll redo them.  Then I'll do the rest.

I think they look nice Baggio, I'll add these into the Sega Magazine pack and add credit to you for making them. Thank you

[Retrofrogg]

Very interesting. I tried importing magazines (PDF) into Launchbox at one point though was put off by the need to add covers manually (as opposed to Launchbox automatically generating thumbnails).

Currently I use YACReader/YACLibrary, which is great at managing comics and magazines, can automatically pull metadata from Comicvine and has an iOS app so you can sync your library and read the comics on your iPad/device.

[Playnite_Is_Better]

On 7/24/2023 at 7:34 AM, Retrofrogg said:

Very interesting. I tried importing magazines (PDF) into Launchbox at one point though was put off by the need to add covers manually (as opposed to Launchbox automatically generating thumbnails).

Currently I use YACReader/YACLibrary, which is great at managing comics and magazines, can automatically pull metadata from Comicvine and has an iOS app so you can sync your library and read the comics on your iPad/device.

That's exactly what put me off for over a year, the thought of having to pull all those covers and backs...

Hopefully the media i uploaded helps relieve some of the work involved with adding them.

 

[Playnite_Is_Better]

Big Thanks to Baggio for the custom clear logo sets he gave me this morning, I'm updating all the media sometime today.

Edited July 25, 2023 by KingSlayer420

[Playnite_Is_Better]

I think I may be nearing the end of my magazine journey (for now), until I find near complete sets for a few more magazines. I've learned alot these past few weeks, from the forums here, and other fellow lb users. I wanted to say thanks to those people, made my journey not so tedious. I'm almost at 1TB of magazines now, that's way more than I will actually read. If anybody else is interested in adding a set here just shoot me the files and I'll upload them to the downloads page, for others to use. I hope I helped somebody out there add a few magazine subscriptions to their collection, I tried to get most of what retromags had to offer at this current time.

[JaysArcade]

I have magazine collections too. I have a bunch of the gaming mags. Comics too, but I have a special place in my heart for those old Mad magazines and Cracked, Crazy, National Lampoon, etc. so I started making media for them. Then I wanted clear logos for my comics too but I didn't get very far. To do the logos for all those would require a time commitment I'm not ready for. Great idea with the cover box art thing you did, as well as numbering the clear logos. I'll have to have a go at that soon. I extracted my covers a long time ago, but I could have sworn there was an option to do the back cover as well. Not sure which program I used to do that. I'll have to look into it when I get a chance.

[Playnite_Is_Better]

1 hour ago, JaysArcade said:

I have magazine collections too. I have a bunch of the gaming mags. Comics too, but I have a special place in my heart for those old Mad magazines and Cracked, Crazy, National Lampoon, etc. so I started making media for them. Then I wanted clear logos for my comics too but I didn't get very far. To do the logos for all those would require a time commitment I'm not ready for. Great idea with the cover box art thing you did, as well as numbering the clear logos. I'll have to have a go at that soon. I extracted my covers a long time ago, but I could have sworn there was an option to do the back cover as well. Not sure which program I used to do that. I'll have to look into it when I get a chance.

Hey Jay! I read your magazine thread here when I first got started, It was very helpful. I love the old Crack and Mad magazines too, I used to love getting one of those from the local store when I was a kid. All in all i'm pretty satisfied with the current LB magazine setup, it's nice to finally see them with covers and backs instead of empty boxes. It was Baggio's idea to add the numbering to the clear logos, he has a template he shared with me to make it pretty easy to do. If your interested he might share it with you as well if you plan to add numbering to your clear logos.

[DerSchlachter]

On 7/12/2023 at 7:46 PM, KingSlayer420 said:

Magazine Edge Spline.zip 4.88 kB · 11 downloads

THX, for the Spine, here is my way to create the spine for many files in a simple way.

Create a Folder in which you want to create your spine. In this Folder create a bat to duplicate the Magazine Edge Spine file .
 

@echo off 
set NUMBER_COPIES=200
for /L %%N IN (1,1,%NUMBER_COPIES%) DO copy magazine_edge.jpg magazine_edge.jpg%%N.png

Start bat with your choose of amount, this is what you get.

 

Now of course we have to give the duplicated files the right names. To do this, we go to the directory in which the files are stored. Mark your files, click right Mousbutton an choose copy as Path.

Open an Editor and copy the Path.

Mark the path for example "R:\LaunchBox\Games\Magazine from the Past\CPC Magazin\ click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.
Mark the file extension for example .pdf" click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.

You get the File names now.

Save with files as .txt in your work folder.

Now, download "Name it your Way (NIYoW)" a small rename tool with an option to rename from a textlist.
I'm almost sure that this also works with Bulkrename, unfortunately I haven't figured out how yet. The tool is my favorite when it comes to renaming files.

Start NIYoW and import your duplicate files

 

Now add below the rule and set these settings. 

In the Parameter field choosse the inputfile, with is your created txt file

click add, in the Mainmenue click Preview & rename.

click rename if everthing is fine, done!

So I just created 7000 files and renamed them

[SiriusVI]

9 hours ago, DerSchlachter said:

THX, for the Spine, here is my way to create the spine for many files in a simple way.

Create a Folder in which you want to create your spine. In this Folder create a bat to duplicate the Magazine Edge Spine file .
 

@echo off 
set NUMBER_COPIES=200
for /L %%N IN (1,1,%NUMBER_COPIES%) DO copy magazine_edge.jpg magazine_edge.jpg%%N.png

Start bat with your choose of amount, this is what you get.

 

Now of course we have to give the duplicated files the right names. To do this, we go to the directory in which the files are stored. Mark your files, click right Mousbutton an choose copy as Path.

Open an Editor and copy the Path.

Mark the path for example "R:\LaunchBox\Games\Magazine from the Past\CPC Magazin\ click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.
Mark the file extension for example .pdf" click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.

You get the File names now.

Save with files as .txt in your work folder.

Now, download "Name it your Way (NIYoW)" a small rename tool with an option to rename from a textlist.
I'm almost sure that this also works with Bulkrename, unfortunately I haven't figured out how yet. The tool is my favorite when it comes to renaming files.

Start NIYoW and import your duplicate files

 

Now add below the rule and set these settings. 

In the Parameter field choosse the inputfile, with is your created txt file

click add, in the Mainmenue click Preview & rename.

click rename if everthing is fine, done!

So I just created 7000 files and renamed them

Where do you put these Spline images?

[Baggio]

I thought this may be helpful to help create the back images rather than have to extract all the images with ComicUtilityBelt which takes a lot of time and you then have to sort through them.

Just place these files in your folder with your PDFs and run the Batch file and it will create separate PDFs adding LASTPAGE to the file name.

Then you can open up ComicUtilityBelt and check "export cover page" and it will extract the just front page of your original PDFs and the newly made PDFs with just the back page in.

Once they are done you'll just have to go in bulk rename and remove LASTPAGE from the file name.

Extract Last Page PDF.zip

btw if you want to export the second to last page if you are using our out-of-print mags, change the r1 in the batch files to r2

If anyone knows of any easier way to do this let me know

Edited August 6, 2023 by Baggio

[Baggio]

10 hours ago, DerSchlachter said:

THX, for the Spine, here is my way to create the spine for many files in a simple way.

Create a Folder in which you want to create your spine. In this Folder create a bat to duplicate the Magazine Edge Spine file .
 

@echo off 
set NUMBER_COPIES=200
for /L %%N IN (1,1,%NUMBER_COPIES%) DO copy magazine_edge.jpg magazine_edge.jpg%%N.png

Start bat with your choose of amount, this is what you get.

 

Now of course we have to give the duplicated files the right names. To do this, we go to the directory in which the files are stored. Mark your files, click right Mousbutton an choose copy as Path.

Open an Editor and copy the Path.

Mark the path for example "R:\LaunchBox\Games\Magazine from the Past\CPC Magazin\ click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.
Mark the file extension for example .pdf" click ctrl+h (find and replace) replace with nothing.

You get the File names now.

Save with files as .txt in your work folder.

Now, download "Name it your Way (NIYoW)" a small rename tool with an option to rename from a textlist.
I'm almost sure that this also works with Bulkrename, unfortunately I haven't figured out how yet. The tool is my favorite when it comes to renaming files.

Start NIYoW and import your duplicate files

 

Now add below the rule and set these settings. 

In the Parameter field choosse the inputfile, with is your created txt file

click add, in the Mainmenue click Preview & rename.

click rename if everthing is fine, done!

So I just created 7000 files and renamed them

Thanks for this.  Creating the splines for was my next step for the 5 new sets I've created with over 1000 mags in total so this will come in very handy

[DerSchlachter]

@Baggio Tested your bat File....Wonderful! Works like a charm!