First Steps

First steps

This page walks through the interactive interface. Everything it does is also a command — see Command line — but for a first enclosure the interface is the easiest way to see what the tool is checking.

Before you start

Have your artwork exported as PNG (or JPEG, GIF or SVG), one file per side you want printed, each already the right shape for its side. The tool scales artwork to fill the artboard; it does not crop, rotate or pad. Preparing artwork covers what "the right shape" means and Enclosure sizes lists every artboard.

Change into the directory where you want the PDFs to land. The interface writes them to the current directory, named <enclosure>-<side>.pdf.

cd ~/pedals/fuzz
tayda-uv

1. Choose an enclosure

tayda-uv — prepare artwork for Tayda UV printing

  Choose an enclosure

▸ 125B      face 62 × 117 mm
  1590A     face 35 × 89 mm
  1590B     face 56 × 108.5 mm
  1590BB    face 90 × 115.5 mm
  1590BB2   face 90 × 115.5 mm
  1590D     face 113 × 182 mm
  1590DD    face 117 × 185 mm
  1590XX    face 117 × 141 mm

  ↑↓ move · enter select · q quit

Move with the arrow keys (or j/k) and press Enter. The size shown is side A, the face.

2. Attach artwork to each side

tayda-uv · 1590B

  SIDE  ARTBOARD        ARTWORK               GLOSS    STATUS
▸ A     56 × 108.5 mm   —                     —        · not set
  B     52 × 24 mm      —                     —        · not set
  C     24 × 103 mm     —                     —        · not set
  D     52 × 24 mm      —                     —        · not set
  E     24 × 103 mm     —                     —        · not set
  Lid   56 × 108.5 mm   —                     —        · not set

  white auto  ·  gloss none  ·  out ~/pedals/fuzz

  no artwork on side A — press enter to choose a file

  ↑↓ move · enter artwork · m gloss mask · x clear · w white · g gloss · c convert · e enclosure · q quit

Side A is the face of the pedal. B and D are the short ends, C and E the long sides, and Lid is the back plate. You only need to attach artwork to the sides you want printed.

Highlight a side and press Enter to open a file picker. It starts in the current directory and only lets you choose files the tool can read (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .svg). Navigate with the arrow keys, Enter to open a folder or pick a file, Backspace to go up, Esc to cancel.

As soon as a file is attached, the side is checked and the STATUS column tells you the result:

Status	Meaning
✓ 305 DPI	Ready to print. The number is the effective resolution at the artboard's physical size.
✗ 212 DPI	Not printable as-is. Highlight the row to see why underneath the table.
· not set	No artwork on this side.

▸ A     56 × 108.5 mm   small.png             —        ✗ 91 DPI
  ...
  small.png
  ✗ resolution is 91 DPI at 56 × 108.5 mm, below the 300 DPI minimum: needs at least 662 × 1282 px
  ✗ aspect ratio is 0.5000 but side A is 0.5161 (56 × 108.5 mm), off by 3.1%: the artwork would be stretched to fit

Fix the file in your image editor and attach it again. Press x to clear a side.

3. Set white and gloss

The status line under the table shows the current settings. They apply to every side.

• w cycles the white undercoat: auto → full → none. Tayda prints CMYK, which has no white, so on anything but a white enclosure you want an undercoat. auto (the default) puts white under the artwork's opaque pixels only; full floods the whole side; none is for white enclosures.
• g cycles gloss: none → full → artwork. Gloss is a paid add-on, so it stays off unless you turn it on.
• m attaches a gloss mask to the highlighted side — a separate image that says where the varnish goes, for coating just a logo. This is per-side and overrides the global gloss setting for that side.

White and gloss explains the options in full.

4. Convert

Press c. Every side with artwork is written in one pass:

Converted

  ✓ 1590B-A.pdf             RDG_WHITE → CMYK
  ✓ 1590B-Lid.pdf           RDG_WHITE → CMYK → RDG_GLOSS

  written to /Users/you/pedals/fuzz

  Check these with Tayda's PDF Analyzer, and order one enclosure before a batch.

  any key back · q quit

If any attached side has a problem, c does nothing and tells you which side is blocking. The interface has no override; if you really do want a PDF from artwork that failed validation, that is a deliberate act on the command line with -force.

A side that fails to write shows ✗ with the reason and leaves no file behind, so a half-written PDF can never sit next to the finished ones.

5. Check and upload

Open each PDF in a viewer and confirm it is the right way up and the colours look right. Then upload it to Tayda's PDF Analyzer (user pdfman, password pdfman) before ordering. Checking the output goes into what to look at.

Other keys

• e goes back to the enclosure list. Choosing a different enclosure discards the attached artwork, because every side is a different size; re-choosing the same one keeps it.
• q quits from any screen. Ctrl-C also works.