I included some illustrations of card layouts back on page \pageref{cards}. Since these are just rectangles, I knew I could create them pretty easily using the \textsf{tikz} package. All I needed were the coordinates where the three rectangles would begin and end, and the coordinates of the nodes where I would put the letters.
As it turns out, this was difficult to figure out using my mind alone—there was too much guesswork. I'm a big fan of having the right tools to do a job and then using those tools. I see no point in being a martyr. So I pulled out the best tool I had for this: graph paper and a pencil. No guess work, just straight lines and a bit of counting. I felt like I was in my eighth grade geometry class again, and I actually enjoyed it.
Last time around, I mentioned using \verb|\input{<filename>}| to keep your \LaTeX{} GUI happy. But I've also found that using \verb|\include{<filename>}| keeps \textit{me} happy. Creating this zine means I end up with a very long file (the file for issue \#5 was 1005 lines long!) making it time consuming to constanty scroll through the file to get to the last part I was editing. (It's not terrible in and of itself, but repeatedly having to do it impacts my overall efficiency.)
For this issue, I decided to write up each chapter as a separate file, and then just \texttt{include} that file into my main document. This makes it much easier to manage, and I do feel more efficient. But because I'm using a GUI (Texmaker) I do have to remember to switch back to my main file when I compile the document. Overall, that's a trade-off I can live with.
