Mirrored or Flipped Text

[Don_Macaroni]

For a solution I need to horizontally flip or mirror text. I have a card printer on which I print transparent stickers. These stickers will be mounted on the inside of a window, so in order to be read from the outside the text needs to be mirrored (or flipped, whatever term you prefer). I thought of making a "Reverse" script and use a custom made font that has all characters flipped (eg. http://abc-font.com/font.php?font=Arial Mirror). But this seems a little complex...

[LaRetta]

You can create a custom function to reverse the field called 'string' similar to:

Mirror ( text )

Let ( 
char = Right ( text ; 1 ) 
;
char & 
Case (
  Length ( text ) > 1 ;
   Mirror ( Left ( text ; Length ( text ) - 1 ) ) 
  ) // end case
) // end let

Then create a calculation ( result is text ) called cReverse as:

Mirror ( string )

 

Edited April 23, 2015 by LaRetta

[comment]

I thought of making a "Reverse" script and use a custom made font that has all characters flipped (eg. http://abc-font.com/font.php?font=Arial Mirror). But this seems a little complex...

​I don't think you will anything less complex than that. The only other solution I can think of would involve "printing" to a graphic fie, then using some graphic application to flip the result. This is not only more complicated, but also - if not done correctly - could reduce the quality of the final printout.

 

Note that if a sticker can span more than one line, you must separate them with a hard return and reverse each one of them separately.

[Don_Macaroni]

Thanks for the replies... Would be a nice feature if Filemaker had a menu function that allows 'flip horizontal' and 'flip vertical', next to the 'Rotate' feature that is already there.

[comment]

Would be a nice feature if Filemaker had a menu function that allows 'flip horizontal' and 'flip vertical', next to the 'Rotate' feature that is already there.

​Come to think of it, that's actually possible, using SVG in a web viewer.

 FlipSVG.fp7

However, it needs more work to get it to align properly, and I am not sure if there is a good way to print this.

[LaRetta]

8-9 years ago I posted the question and was given a mirror font; not sure I could find it now.  But searching 'mirror font' gives several fonts.  The problem I found was that they never looked right plus I had to make sure that font was installed on everyone's system which was not possible.

Nice idea, Comment!

[comment]

I had to make sure that font was installed on everyone's system

I guess that wouldn't be a problem here: you only need to make sure it's installed on the (one?) system that has the printer that can print transparent stickers.

​

[pixi]

For a solution I need to horizontally flip or mirror text. I have a card printer on which I print transparent stickers. These stickers will be mounted on the inside of a window, so in order to be read from the outside the text needs to be mirrored (or flipped, whatever term you prefer).

You can "print" a pdf to the FM-temp directory, edit it via CLI/Apple Script using sips and either print the pdf directly or import it back into a container and print that (container) from FileMaker.

Make sense?

 

…

Ah, it's meant for use on a Mac

[comment]

You can "print" a pdf to the FM-temp directory, edit it via CLI/Apple Script using sips

​I thought that would be interesting to try, so I did - using the script found here:
http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/imageevents/02.html

This did flip the text, but not before converting it to a bit-mapped image with fixed resolution (exactly what I warned about in my first post).  It also changed the size of the text - see the screen shot comparing the before and after (note that both are zoomed by the same factor).

 

[pixi]

Not sure why you used "Image Events" instead of sips (and I also don't know if and how Image Events uses sips, but nevermind ;o)

While I agree that it gets pixelated, I can't get your result…

 

[comment]

Not sure why you used "Image Events" instead of sips

​Well, what is sips?

[pixi]

​Well, what is sips?

​Part of every Mac OS X

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/sips.1.html

As it seems there, "Image Events" can use sips:

"This tool is used to query or modify raster image files and ColorSync ICC profiles. Its functionality can also be used through the "Image Events" AppleScript suite."

Edited May 4, 2015 by pixi
Additional info

[comment]

​Part of every Mac OS X

​Yes, I know that. I meant, what is the nature of sips? AFAIK, both sips (the command-line utility) and Image Events provide an interface to the Core Image framework (or more specifically, to the "Scriptable Image Processing Server" (SIPS) service) . And since Image Events is a scriptable, faceless application designed specifically to be used by AppleScript, it makes more sense to me to use it directly, rather than calling upon a shell script to call upon a command line utility to execute the same action.

[pixi]

I'd be interested to know why your result using Image Events is so different to mine using CLI?

[comment]

Perhaps it depends on something in the input. What do you get when you try it with mine?

before.pdf

[pixi]

Not sure if the Font type plays any role here but I used Georgia, 110 pt, and have even less pixelation than with your pdf (and a smaller font?).

Would you try it with my file? ;o)

 

 

FlipTest.zip

[comment]

Uhm.. what exactly are we testing here and for what purpose?

[pixi]

Uhm.. what exactly are we testing here and for what purpose?

​Sorry if I don't get what you mean, now!

You asked:

What do you get when you try it with mine?

and I showed you my output.

 

[LaRetta]

So fliptest.zip just shows a regular font Georgia at 110 pt in an fmp12 file, nothing else.  Did you mean to attach a different file by chance?  :-)

Edited May 7, 2015 by LaRetta

[pixi]

The zip above contains a fmp12 as the ase for further tests (or to show my testing source) and 4 pdf showing the results of my tests.

[comment]

 

​Sorry if I don't get what you mean, now!

I was referring to this:

Would you try it with my file?

​What do you expect to learn from this? FWIW, my method increases the size of your PDF too. I don't know the reason, but suppose I did, how would this be useful to anyone?

[pixi]

Simply which method is more useful/recommended to use.

[comment]

IMHO neither method is acceptable, because both rasterize the image before flipping it.

Edited May 9, 2015 by comment