For the next symposium about supercomputing on our computing center I
was asked to make badges with TeX for the participants.  Although TeX is
perhaps not the most suitable tool for such a `visual design' problem my
visitcards (with our in house logos in METAFONT) made with TeX looked
very similar to this problem. 

It would be nice if the badges can be made by secretaries having no
experience with TeX at all. So I have made a `badges.tex' file which
reads all participants names and their institution name from the file
`addresses.tex'. Both are put on two consecutive lines. (The only thing I
have to learn them is how to make diacritical symbols.)

I have written a TeX macro \put(x,y,box) which places the badge `box' on
position x,y of the paper (x number of centimeters from the left margin
and y the number of centimeters above (negative!) the upper margin) by
using some dirty tricks from the TeXbook. The essential part of the
`badge.tex' program now consists of the following loop:
   \newread\addressfile
   \newif\ifGoOn	\GoOntrue
   
   \openin\addressfile=addresses
   \ifeof\addressfile\message{Cannot open addresses}\end\fi
   
   \read\addressfile to \text \let\name=\text
   \loop
      \read\addressfile to \text \let\inst=\text
      \immediate\write16{Badge: \name \inst}
      \badge{\name}{\inst}
      \read\addressfile to \text \let\name=\text
      \ifeof\addressfile\GoOnfalse\fi
      \ifGoOn
   \repeat

Here is how \badge puts the new badge on place and ejects the page:
   \newcount\cnt \cnt=0
   \newdimen\X \newdimen\Y \X=0cm \Y=0cm
   
   \def\badge#1#2{
      \advance\cnt by1
      \ifodd\cnt\X=0cm\advance\Y by-\height
         \ifnum\Y<-\vsize\eject\cnt=1\X=0cm\Y=-\height\fi
         \else\advance\X by\width
      \fi
      \put(\X,\Y,% don't leave this percent sign!
      	\vbox to \height{
   		\kern.5cm
   		{\namefont\hbox to\width{\hfill#1\hfill}}
   		\vfil		% next line is site dependant !!!!!!
   		\hbox to \width{\kern.5cm{\tue tue}\hfill{\RC RC}\kern.5cm}
   		\vfil		% above line is site dependant !!!!!!
   		{\addressfont\hbox to\width{\hfill#2\hfill}}
   		\kern.5cm%
   	})
   }

For those of you who also want to make there badges with TeX I have included
a shar file containing: badges.tex, a sample addresses.tex file and the
PostScript result badge.ps (with our logos). (You should change the lines in
which I use our logos with suitable substitutes for your company!)

Happy Badge-ing!

--Piet