v3.8
These instructions and script are to create a list of students in a class with a decent-sized photo for each.
It's designed to work with the classlists created by Workday, which (at WPI) only have a thumbnail version of the student photos, and these are embedded in a list with all the class information. The script extracts each photo to a decent size and includes it with just a name. This may be useful for, say, learning the names of students in a class.
Besides needing Workday to get the classlist (PDF and Excel), the following tools are required:
- pdfimages (to extract the images from the PDF)
- xlsx2csv (to convert the Excel file to csv)
- csvformat (to convert csv to tsv)
- Latex (used by pandoc to create PDFs)
- Latex caption package (for aligning figures, 3 per row)
- Latex subcaption package (for centering names on figures)
- convert (from ImageMagick, for padding figures that are narrow)
- pandoc (for converting markdown to PDF)
Tip: for Linux Ubuntu, the following commands will install everything needed:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install \
pandoc \
xlsx2csv \
latex \
texlive-latex-recommended \
Imagemagick \
poppler-utils \
csvkit
It's been tested on Linux Ubuntu.
- Get class list from Workday
Workday -> Teaching -> View Course Section Roster -> (select class)
- Export class list to PDF
View printable Version (PDF) (button labeled "PDF" in upper right corner)
Download this file, save as "roster.pdf".
- Export class list to Excel
(button with a little X to the top right of the roster window)
Download this file, save as "roster.xlsx".
- Extract images, get names, build document
Type: make
This should extract the images from roster.pdf, extract the names
from roster.txt, create a temporary markdown file names-n-pic.md and
finally generate the classlist with pictures:
"names-n-pic.pdf"
- (Optional) Clean up.
To remove temporary files made, type:
make clean
To remove everything, including final PDF type:
make very-clean
Missing images replaced with anonymous silhouette.
Narrow/wide images resized or padded, as needed, and centered.
Students on the waitlist included, listed after others.
Classlists with "lastname, firstname" as well as "firstname lastname".
Alternate Workday format (there seem to be two, classlist formats provided).
Roster PDFs with odd blank images embedded.
Make options to generate "names-n-pic.html" and "names-n-pic.docx".
Some pictures still do not scale optimally.
When Workday has pronouns, add to names.
Enjoy!
-- Mark Claypool
claypool@cs.wpi.edu