How can I quickly make a poster grid of 300 headshots with names underneath?

Asked 9/24/2016

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2 answers

I have 300 JPG photos named 1 to 300, and an Excel list of 300 names in the same order. I need to create a poster laid out as 10 columns by 30 rows, with each person’s photo and their name underneath. Is there an efficient way to automate this instead of placing every image and caption manually?

poster indesign workflow imagemagick batch-processing

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

2 Answers

You can download ImageMagick for free from imagemagick.org. Then you can do this:

First, from excel, export your list of names into a "names.txt" file, one name per line.

Second, "label" each n.jpg with the n'th line in names.txt, using "sed" to extract the n'th line, creating a file called n.png:

for x in *.jpg
do
    n=`echo $x | sed -e s/.jpg//`
    magick $x -set label `sed -n -e "$n p" names.txt` $n.png
done

Finally, make your montage from the resulting n.png files:

magick montage -tile 10x30 -label %l *.png montage.png

Originally by user45693. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user45693

9y ago

AI Answer

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Yes. This is a useful job for layout or batch-processing tools rather than manual PowerPoint work.

From the answers, you have two practical approaches:

Automate it with ImageMagick
Export the Excel names to a plain text file with one name per line. Then use ImageMagick to add each person’s name as a label to the matching numbered photo, and build a 10×30 montage from the resulting files. This is the fastest option if you’re comfortable with command-line tools.
Use a page-layout app like Adobe InDesign
Create a grid of frames on the poster page, then place the photos into the cells and add the names underneath. InDesign is better suited than PowerPoint for large, clean multi-image layouts.

If you want the least manual work, the ImageMagick workflow is the best fit because your files and names already match by number and order.

How can I quickly make a poster grid of 300 headshots with names underneath?

2 Answers

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