What I'm trying to do:
I have lots of software code that I need to print on a long scroll. The scroll will be no more than 440mm wide and as long as it needs to be (with a maximum of 45m). The resulting code listing is to be part of an exhibit contrasting the ‘sketching’ phase in a multidisciplinary project between design, social science, and software engineering.
What I've tried:
• Printing straight from the IDE
I cannot print straight from the development environment (Visual Studio 2012 and SQL Server Management Studio) because:
Both tools assume standard page sizes
I need to rotate the software code listing 180 degrees so that the end of the listing is at the tail of the paper roll.
• Using Photoshop
Since, I can't print from the IDE, I’m doing it in Adobe Photoshop (CS5, 64 bit, on Windows 8). My workflow for this is verging on the ridiculous:
First I cut-and-paste each file from the code editor into a Microsoft Word document. If I cut-and-paste the code listings into PS/Ai I lose the formatting (for example the coloring of comments differently form variable declarations)
I save the Microsoft Word document as a PDF and open that into Photoshop (to preserve the formatting)
I now have 51 PSD files, each with one layer containing the text for that ‘page’. It’s rasterized layers as it is not editable as text
Using Adobe Bridge I open all 51 PSD files created in step 3 and “Load Files into Photoshop Layers” so that I have a new single Photoshop file with all 51 text image layers in.
The layers sit on top of each other. What I need is for them to sit head-to-toe. I don’t know how to do this without spending a million years selecting layers and moving them by hand.
If I ever get Stage 5 done I will then group the 51 layers and rotate the result through 180 degrees.
I will then re-size the result to have a width of 400mm and print the resulting file on our banner printer, having first calculated the resulting paper ‘height’ and turned off the automatic paper cutting.
My Questions:
Is there a better way of doing this?
I can see the Photoshop actions that will align layers by their tops, their bottoms, or their centers but how do I automatically align them so that the bottom of layer 1 touches the top of layer 2, the bottom of layer 2 touches the top of layer 3, etc.?