Blabel

.. image:: https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/actions/workflows/build.yml/badge.svg :target: https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/actions/workflows/build.yml :alt: GitHub CI build status

.. image:: https://coveralls.io/repos/github/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/badge.svg?branch=master :target: https://coveralls.io/github/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel?branch=master

.. raw:: html

<p align="center">
<img alt="Blabel Logo" title="Blabel" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/master/docs/_static/images/title.png" width="400">
<br /><br />
</p>

Blabel is a Python package to generate labels (typically for printing stickers) with barcodes and other niceties.

Some features:

• Generates PDF files where each page is a label (that's the way most label printers want it).
• Label layout is defined by HTML (Jinja) templates and CSS. Supports any page dimensions and margins.
• Builtin support for various barcodes, QR-codes, datamatrix, and more (wraps other libraries).
• Labels data can be provided as list of dicts (easy to generate from spreadsheets).
• Possibility to print several items per sticker.

.. raw:: html

<p align="center">
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/master/docs/_static/images/demo_screenshot.png" width="715">
<br /><br />
</p>

Example

To generate labels with Blabel you first need a HTML/Jinja template, and optionally a style sheet, to define how your labels will look like.

.. raw:: html

<br/><br/>

HTML item template (item_template.html)

Notice the use of label_tools (Blabel's builtin features). The variables sample_name and sample_id will be defined at label creation time.

.. code:: html

<img src="{{label_tools.qr_code(sample_id)}}"/>
<span class='label'>
    {{ sample_name }} <br/>
    Made with blabel <br/>
    {{ label_tools.now() }}
</span>

.. raw:: html

<br/><br/>

CSS stylesheet (style.css)

Notice the CSS @page attributes which allows you to adjust the page format to the dimensions of your sticker. Also notice the pixelated image rendering. If your printer is black/white only with no greyscale support, this option will ensure crisp-looking barcodes, qr codes, etc.

.. code:: css

@page {
    width: 27mm;
    height: 7mm;
    padding: 0.5mm;
}
img {
    height: 6.4mm;
    display: inline-block;
    vertical-align: middle;
    image-rendering: pixelated;
}
.label {
    font-family: Verdana;
    font-weight: bold;
    vertical-align: middle;
    display: inline-block;
    font-size: 7px;
}

.. raw:: html

<br/><br/>

Python code

In your Python script, create a LabelWriter linked to the two files above, and feed it a list of of dicts ("records"), one for each label to print:

.. code:: python

from blabel import LabelWriter

label_writer = LabelWriter("item_template.html",
                           default_stylesheets=("style.css",))
records= [
    dict(sample_id="s01", sample_name="Sample 1"),
    dict(sample_id="s02", sample_name="Sample 2")
]

label_writer.write_labels(records, target='qrcode_and_label.pdf')

.. raw:: html

<br/><br/>

Result:

.. raw:: html

<p align="center">
<img alt="Blabel Logo" title="Labels" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/master/examples/qrcode_and_date/screenshot.png" width="300">
<br /><br />
</p>

Other examples

• Example with a barcode and a dynamically generated picture <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/tree/master/examples/barcode_and_dynamic_picture>_
• Ugly example with a logo and a datamatrix <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/blob/master/examples/logo_and_datamatrix>_
• Example with date and QR code (sources of the example above) <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/blob/master/examples/qrcode_and_date>_
• Example where the label data is read from spreadsheets <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/blob/master/examples/labels_from_spreadsheet>_
• Example where several items are printed on each page/sticker <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel/tree/master/examples/several_items_per_page>_

Installation

You can install Blabel via PIP:

.. code::

pip install blabel

Alternatively, you can unzip the sources in a folder and type:

.. code::

python setup.py install

Note: the package depends on the WeasyPrint Python package. If there are any issues, see installation instructions in the WeasyPrint documentation <https://doc.courtbouillon.org/weasyprint/stable/first_steps.html>_.

If you have an older GNU/Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04), then install an older WeasyPrint (<=52), as they don't have the latest Pango that is required by the latest WeasyPrint: pip install weasyprint==52

Note: on macOS, you may need to first install pango with brew install pango.

Note: on some Debian systems you may need to first install libffi-dev (apt install libffi-dev). The package name may be libffi-devel on some systems.

License = MIT

DnaChisel is an open-source software originally written at the Edinburgh Genome Foundry <https://edinburgh-genome-foundry.github.io/home.html>_ by Zulko <https://github.com/Zulko>_ and released on Github <https://github.com/Edinburgh-Genome-Foundry/blabel>_ under the MIT licence (Copyright 2018 Edinburgh Genome Foundry). Everyone is welcome to contribute!

More biology software

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Blabel was originally written to print labels for biological samples and is part of the EGF Codons <https://edinburgh-genome-foundry.github.io/>_ synthetic biology software suite for DNA design, manufacturing and validation.