Ideas for a physical (non-PDF-digital) Bookmark

Question

I'd like to make a physical bookmark, so that readers can leave inside the page numbers to mark where to continue reading. I haven't ever seen any examples of this through the site. This would be a piece of cardboard that may have some printing in words on it.

I'm open for any ideas. Some things I'm looking for (not required as answer):

• a stylish example, of what LaTeX can do
• to customize a paper size
• to replicate the marker many times in a page to cut several markers from 1 sheet

So I've already wrote a book and auto-published with LaTeX. I've made the inside, the book cover. And now this last part would be great. I'm looking to promote [mysite.com] where I have more material alike to the book. I've tried to make a mwe but am not satisfied with the result. (I've used tcolorbox but this was just a casual random experiment).

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt,landscape]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\newtcolorbox[auto counter]{question}
{colback=gray!20,colframe=gray,fonttitle=\bfseries,
title=mysite.com~}

\begin{document} 
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{multicols}{3}

\begin{minipage}{6.7cm}\begin{question}
site content is ... \lipsum[11] \par 
\end{question}\end{minipage} \hspace*{1cm}

\begin{minipage}{6.7cm}\begin{question}
site content is ... \lipsum[11] \par 
\end{question}\end{minipage} \hspace*{1cm}

\begin{minipage}{6.7cm}\begin{question}
site content is ... \lipsum[11] \par 
\end{question}\end{minipage} \hspace*{1cm}

\end{multicols}
\end{document}

---

Some notes on customization

• Maybe it'd be desirable to have a number book-format to marker ratios? (Meaning).
• Following the prior, on a personal note:
  • I'm planning to do this for a A6 sized booklet. What should be the ideal size/s of the bookmark?
  • The marker bookmark is to be done in a paper cardboard that resembles the color, and perhaps even texture, of wood. So it's ok if black letters are used, but white letters are not very encouraged. Hence my dissatisfaction with my own mwe.

Some points to develop

2 ideas from cfr, with which I agree:

the ideal bookmark does not obscure content when reading, even if the marker is left in place. This means that the ideal bookmark is typically longer than the height of the paper but very thin. The ribbon markers sewn into traditional bindings are very good, but portable markers can serve the same function.

That is, good bookmarks are like good typography - you don't notice them. They do not draw attention to themselves, but simply facilitate focusing on the book's content (or books' contents, in the portable case).

The next point however, I'm uncertain. Opinions?

..But you obviously cannot make markers of this kind from cardboard and you certainly can't use them to draw attention to a website!

Explanation: I write short pieces in website and send to some people to beta-test. These pieces are latter to be part of a next book. So there is a good deal of pre-book, and book-alike, materials. Hence I think it'd be ok to refer that in a bookmark for the book and it's readers. Pros/Cons?

---

Wrapping up

What is the expected material to be proper for a bookmark?

Answer 1

As I say, I think this is unanswerable. But, hey, it doesn't usually stop people.

First, some standard bookmarks. If it is going on wood-effect paper, I'd say you want something without much background, but since you're using colour boxes, I guess you don't agree.

Now for something with a bit more sparkle.

And with a take away message.

Code for included graphics (cat codes, duck codes, tree codes, tram codes ...) is available elsewhere on this site ;). Cauldron variant availabe on application.

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage[vscale=.95,hscale=.975]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\tcbuselibrary{xparse,skins}
\usetikzlibrary{shadings,fit,backgrounds}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{PTSansCaption,PTSerif}
\NewTColorBox{marker}{ O {blue!50!cyan} O {magenta} }{% page 197
  skin=enhanced,
  frame style={upper left=#1, upper right=#2, lower left=#2,lower right=#1},
  interior style={white},
  fonttitle=\sffamily\bfseries\large,
  center title,
  title=mysite.com,
  width=.245\textwidth,
  nobeforeafter,
  hyphenationfix,
  halign=center,
  boxsep=.25mm,
  fontupper=\sffamily,
  toptitle=1mm,
  bottomtitle=1mm,
  coltitle=black,
  title filled=false,
  colback=white,
  colbacktitle=white,
}
\NewTColorBox{bookmark}{ s O {blue!50!cyan} O {magenta} O {blue} }{% page 197
  skin=enhanced,
  frame style={upper left=#2, upper right=#3, lower left=#3,lower right=#2},
  interior style={white, opacity=0.5},
  colbacktitle=white,
  coltitle=black!85!#4,
  colupper=black!60!#4,
  opacitybacktitle=.25,
  IfBooleanTF={#1}{fonttitle=\bfseries\sffamily\Large}{fonttitle=\bfseries\Large},
  IfBooleanTF={#1}{fontupper=\sffamily}{},
  center title,
  title=mysite.com,
  width=.245\textwidth,
  nobeforeafter,
  hyphenationfix,
  halign=center,
  boxsep=.25mm,
  toptitle=1mm,
  bottomtitle=1mm,
}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\noindent
\begin{marker}
  \lipsum[11]
\end{marker}
\begin{marker}[gray][gray]
  \lipsum[11]
\end{marker}
\begin{marker}[black][white]
  \lipsum[11]
\end{marker}
\begin{bookmark}*
  \lipsum[11]
\end{bookmark}
\medskip

\noindent
\begin{bookmark}
  \lipsum[11]
\end{bookmark}
\begin{bookmark}[orange!25!red!60!brown][yellow!40!brown][brown]
  \lipsum[11]
\end{bookmark}
\begin{bookmark}[blue][green][blue!75!green]
  \lipsum[11]
\end{bookmark}
\begin{bookmark}[blue!25!white][white!25!blue][blue!75!gray]
  \lipsum[11]
\end{bookmark}
\newpage
\noindent
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \node [rotate=90] (c) {\includegraphics[width=100mm]{cath-gadael-chartref}};
  \node (a) [anchor=south, font=\itshape\LARGE, rotate=90] at (c.north) {Don't leave home without it!};
  \node (b) [anchor=south, font=\Huge\bfseries, rotate=90] at (a.north) {mysite.com};
  \node [fit=(c) (a) (b), line width=.5mm, double=red!25, draw=red!75!black, rounded corners=10pt] {};
\end{tikzpicture}
\hskip 10mm
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \node (c) {\includegraphics[width=130mm]{coeden-nadolig-2014-hwyaden}};
  \node (a) [anchor=north, font=\itshape\LARGE, text=blue!25] at (c.south) {Spruce it up!};
  \node (b) [anchor=south, font=\Huge\bfseries, text=blue!75!black] at (c.north) {mysite.com};
  \scoped[on background layer]{%
    \node [fit=(c) (a) (b), draw=blue!50, line width=2.5mm, rounded corners=25pt, inner xsep=0pt, bottom color=black, top color=blue!15] {};
  }
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}