Banks of the Boneyard

The typesetting pipeline for Banks of the Boneyard. It turns Markdown articles, a handful of YAML files, and live organization data into a print-ready PDF newspaper using Typst.

Every issue is produced in two editions:

• Online — links are clickable (blue/underlined).
• Print — each link is shown as plain text with a QR code and the URL beneath it.

Quick start

make setup                       # one-time: create .venv and install deps
make all                         # build both editions
open build/output/banks-online.pdf

Command	Builds
make all	Both editions
make online / make print	One edition
make online-debug / make print-debug	With layout overlays (grid, regions, overflow bands)
make strict	Print edition; fails if any article overflows its space
make ui	The web editor at http://localhost:3000
make clean	Delete generated files

Finished PDFs land in build/output/ (banks-online.pdf, banks-print.pdf).

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Typst 0.14+ — the typst command must be on your PATH
• The Georgia font (the newspaper's typeface)
• An internet connection at build time — the organization directory is fetched live from the ACM@UIUC API (the build still succeeds offline, just with an empty directory)

make setup installs the Python dependencies (pyyaml, requests, qrcode[pil], flask).

Issues

Each issue's inputs live in their own folder under issues/:

issues/vol43-iss1/
  config.yaml          # masthead: volume, issue, date, headline, editors, directory order
  events.yaml          # "Upcoming Events" box on the title page
  lftc.md              # Letter from the Chair
  layout-online.yaml   # where each article/image sits — online edition
  layout-print.yaml    # ...and the print edition (both required)
  articles/*.md        # the articles (markdown with a title/authors header)
  articles/images/     # their images

Builds use the most-recently-modified issue folder by default, or you can name one:

make all ISSUE=vol43-iss1
make new-issue ISSUE=vol43-iss2     # scaffold a new issue from issues/_template/

Shared across all issues (at the repo root): the organization directory data (blurbs/*.yaml, logo/*) and the build engine (build.py, typst/, ui/).

You can edit an issue's files directly, or use the visual web editor (make ui) to place articles on a grid, edit the masthead and articles, and build/preview — it reads and writes the same files.

Documentation

• USER_GUIDE.md — for editors putting together an issue: writing articles, laying out pages, adding images, building, and fixing overflow. Start here if you're producing an issue.
• ARCHITECTURE.md — how the build pipeline and the Typst rendering engine work, end to end.