Thread: Instant CD covers

Creating a CD/DVD inlay with a track list of all the songs on it is no big deal. All you have to do is use the disc burning software's built-in cover designing tool (if it has one) or type the list of songs in a text file. The challenge lies in creating CD or DVD inlays with the list of the entire contents of an MP3 disc or a data CD. One of the smartest ways is to use an application which can generate a list of folder or drive contents, and then import it into a CD cover designing application.

However, this method is quite cumbersome and time-consuming, since the CDs have a large number of files, and you might not want to include certain files and folders.
After browsing through a list of cover designing applications, the best we found for creating inlays for MP3 and data discs was cdrLabel. Weighing under 2 MB, this nifty application works like magic. You simply have to insert a CD or a DVD into the optical drive, tell the software to read the disc and it automatically generates the inlay with the contents in a jiffy. The best part is that the data is presented in a tree structure. You can expand and collapse folders, add images and text boxes, and even edit the spine text. For MP3 disc inlays, cdrLabel also features plug-ins for automatic file numbering and generating track listings for the inlays from the songs' ID3 tags.



In this workshop we will show you six simple steps to create CD/DVD inlays using cdrLabel. Here's how we created an inlay for a DVD stuffed with MP3 files. STEP 1: Start cdrLabel, and select Label Format from the File menu. Select the type of inlay you wish to create. You can choose between CD labels, standard
or slim jewel case, or booklet. Select "booklet" in case of DVDs as they can hold thousands of songs.

STEP 2: Load the MP3 or data CD/DVD into the optical drive and wait until the disc spins up. Then click on the first button on the toolbar which says Read Disc. CdrLabel will scan the disc and layout its contents in the selected template.

STEP 3: Now format the font of the inlay according to your preference. We suggest you set the font to Arial and the font size to 8 as it will be clear. This will enable you to have more content on a single page. STEP 4: If you are creating an inlay for a standard jewel case, right click on the spine text (the volume label of the disc), select Spine Font, and format the font as desired. If you want to make the spine fancier, set the background color.

STEP 5: If you wish to expand or collapse folders or alter the contents of the inlay, right click anywhere on the inlay and select Edit Files and Folders from the context menu. Use the Files and Folders Editor dialog box to make necessary changes STEP 6: To add images or text boxes to the inlay, right click on the inlay page and select the option Insert Image or Insert String. After you're done, print the inlay, cut the pages along their borders and insert them into the jewel case