This project is a way for me to share my method of making, organizing, and distributing course notes. It's idiosyncratic as hell.
This has been tested under Mac OS X 10.11.6 (15G31). It should work on most modern Macs. It may work on Linux. It requires the bash shell.
Adobe Illustrator must be installed. I've tested it with AI CS6. It may work with other Illustrator versions.
The distribution is simply a directory containing some scripts and some example courses. Clone/download the directory to your machine. I structured it so that all your notes will exist inside this directory, with individual courses at the second level. In practice, I actually change this structure, but this is the easiest way to distribute it, rationally.
At the top level, you'll see the following files and folders.
callScripts.scpt
me316_2016F
me345_2016F
mySaveAsArchivePDFs.jsx
processAllNotes.command
processNotes.sh
lectureNotes.ait
Unless something breaks, don't worry about messing with callScripts.scpt, mySaveAsArchivePDFs.jsx, and processNotes.sh. The file lectureNotes.ait is an Illustrator template file that can be "installed" by placing it in the directory /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CS6/Cool Extras/en_US/Templates. Now, in Illustrator, File > New from Template ... will show lectureNotes.ait. Note that by default, in addition to the title, there's a textbox on the main layer that is annoying if you aren't going to use it.
Read the next two sentences before executing the first sentence. Open processAllNotes.command in a plain text editor (TextEdit is fine). Do not double-click the file to open it; it will execute ... do something like alt-click and use Open With .... Notice that the array coursesArray has the following entries.
me345_2016F
me316_2016F
These are example courses that contain example Illustrator .ai files. I suggest not messing with processAllNotes.command for now. (Later, add your own course directory names here.)
Browse the directory ME345_2016F. You will see three .ai files that are my notes for the first three lectures in the course. Ignore the mySaveAsArchivePDFs.jsx shortcut ... it has to be there, pointing to mySaveAsArchivePDFs.jsx at the level above, but you needn't mess with it.
The .ai note files will be described in detail in the next section. For now, we'll focus on how to convert these into pdf files for printing and distribution. The scripts will do the work. Two pdf files are produced for each Illustrator file: one in the subdirectory archive (it will be generated) that contains all your notes (this copy's for you to print for yourself); the other will be in the subdirectory partial (also will be generated) that contains most of your notes, but is missing specific regions you've chosen to hide from your students (so they have to follow along and fill-in).
Let's try it. Double-click processAllNotes.command (you may need to open a Terminal, navigate to the illustrator-noter directory, and execute the command chmod +x processAllNotes.command). If everything runs ok, you may need to have Illustrator be your active window while it processes the files. After a few moments, browse to me345_2016F. You should see something like the following.
The archive directory should contain the full note pdfs. The partial directory should contain the partial note pdfs. The temp directory can be ignored. The two text files generated can also be ignored (they store timestamps of when files have been modified, so if these text files are deleted, all Illustrator files will be re-processed and the text files will be re-generated). Check to see that both courses have generated archive and partial pdfs. Now, immediately repeating the command should do nothing because the scripts check to see if any changes have been made since last time (it's really checking timestamps). If you modify an .ai file, then execute the command, only the modified file will be updated.
Open up the lecture notes ME345_2016F_001_BasicElectronics.ai in Illustrator. Open up the Layers palette. You should see something like this.
The top layer main is used for writing most of the notes. The second layer inclass is used to write in class. The hidden layer hidden contains the portions of the notes you'd like your students not to see until you fill it in, in class. The graphics layer can be unlocked and graphics (like pictures) added to it. Re-lock it so it's easier to draw on the graphics. The rules layer has the light gray rules on it.
My workflow is like this: first write my notes in main, then select the regions I'd like for my students to fill-in in class and move them to hidden.
Notice that there's more than one page in this set of notes. Well, Illustrator doesn't actually have the concept of "page," but "artboards" are essentially the same thing. These artboards are letter size. When you reach the bottom of a page and would like a new page, you can create one by opening the Artboards palette and clicking New Artboard at the bottom. You should see something like the following.
Unfortunately, you have to manually move this to the bottom. To move an artboard, use the keyboard shortcut Shift-O. Drag it to the bottom such that the top corners of the new page are coincident with the bottom corners of the previous page. Note that the rules were already there (up to ten pages).
Usually my inclass layer ends up looking just like the hidden layer, after a lecture (as is shown in this file). Before the next lecture, I usually delete everything from inclass. To select everything in the layer, click the circle to the right of the layer name. Then, press delete on your keyboard.